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AbstractIn the early years of the twenty-first century the narrative of "emerging powers" and "rising powers" seemed to provide a clear and powerful picture of how international relations and global politics were changing. Yet dramatic changes in the global system have led many to conclude that the focus on the BRICS and the obsession with the idea of rising powers reflected a particular moment in time that has now passed. The story line is now about backlash at the core; and, with the exception of China, rising powers have returned to their role as secondary or supporting actors in the drama of global politics. Such a conclusion is profoundly mistaken for three sets of reasons: the continued reality of the post-Western global order; the need to understand nationalist backlash as a global phenomenon; and the imperative of locating and strengthening a new pluralist conception of global order.

Kissinger's World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History provides a powerful restatement of many of themes that have run through Kissinger's previous writings, his commentary on international affairs, and his own view of the practice of own diplomacy. The book displays Kissinger's capacity for grand synthesis and his ability to weave together a vast range of material into a coherent overall pattern. It is surely correct in pressing the case for taking the return of geopolitics seriously and for recognising the importance of different ways of seeing the world and of interpreting world order. But it is deeply flawed in the manner in which the themes of power and values are treated and in the moral and political lessons that are drawn from the analysis.

Broad comparisons of international relations across time—of the prospects for peace and of the possibilities for a new ethics for a connected world—typically focus on two dimensions: economic globalization and integration on the one hand, and the character of major interstate relations on the other. One of the most striking features of the pre-1914 world was precisely the coincidence of intensified globalization with a dramatic deterioration in major power relations, the downfall of concert-style approaches to international order, and the descent into total war and ideological confrontation—what T. S. Eliot termed "the panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history." Today's optimists stress the degree to which globalization appears much more firmly institutionalized than it was a hundred years ago, the rather striking success of global economic governance in responding to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 (compared to, say, the Great Depression), and the longer-term trend within international society to move away from major-power war. Pessimists are less sure. They worry that we have had to re-learn just how unstable global capitalism can be, both in terms of the wrenching societal changes produced by economic success and of the political strains produced by slowdown and recession. And they point to the abiding or resurgent power of nationalism in all of the core countries in the system, the return of balance-of-power thinking (above all in Asia), and the renewed salience of major power politics.