In-Person
Convening

In-Person Book Talk – The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West

RSVP Required Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

The Belfer Center and the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia invite you to join Amitav Acharya, UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance and Distinguished Professor at the School of International Service at American University, for an in-person discussion on his book The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West. The discussion will be moderated by Rana Mitter, S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations.

Flags of the world

This talk will focus on Acharya’s new book offering a 5,000-year history of world ordering, encompassing Asia, Africa, the Islamic world, the Mediterranean, the Americas, Europe and the US-led “West.” It will cover three questions: First, whether, to what extent,  and how world order can be viewed as a “shared creation,” rather than a Western monopoly? Second, will the end of Western dominance be a “good thing” for world order, and if so, how? Third, what might be the shape of the “next” world order: multipolarity, bipolarity, revival of US hegemony, a world order of regions, or a “multiplex” world? Acharya also reflects on the reactions to his book worldwide and assesses recent developments, such as the further erosion of the liberal international order and the future of multilateralism in a “world-minus-one.”