Tycoons Influence On Politics
"A century’s journey: How the great powers shape the world"
Robert
A. Pastor et.al For all the claims of globalization, says Robert
A. Pastor, a
handful of countries still define the world at the end of the
20th century--and
will continue to do so in the 21st. This statement infuses
new blood into the
current foreign policy discussion about the likely
arrangement of the foreign
policy stage in the 21st century. Many foreign
policy analysts have suggested
that new powers will arise in a big way and
push aside and steal the limelight
form the usual stars of the foreign policy
theater. In A century’s journey,
Robert A. Pastor Along with six other
foreign-policy scholars, argues that the
current foreign policy heavyweights
will continue to wield considerable
influence, despite the new set of
circumstances they are presented with. Pastor
examines the recent history of
the world's seven "great powers"
(France, Germany, Russia, Great Britain,
China, Japan, and the United States) to
demonstrate how they have
influenced--and adapted to--the upheavals of the 20th
century. They also
offer some thoughts on what the "Liberal Epoch" to
come will bring: if Russia
and China are not fully welcomed into the community
of great powers, Pastor
warns, conflict is inevitable. And while international
law and tribunals will
continue to play an important role, they will require
strengthened means of
monitoring and enforcement if they are to be effective.
This point is
particularly important, because it outlines the new framework that
needs to
be developed by the international community to be able to deal with
an
increasingly integrated world and the effects of that integration. A
Century's
Journey offers some carefully considered insights into how the
nations of the
world will deal with each other in the coming decades. This
incisive study of
the evolving world order argues that seven countries have
changed the world
during the 20th century and predicts their continued
centrality in the 21st.
Will the world of the twenty-first century be
dominated by global companies,
ethnic strife, or rogue tyrants? This
definitive volume argues convincingly that
the answer depends on the actions
of the world's great powers, which will
continue to set the rules affecting
globalization, culture, and pariah regimes.
In A Century's Journey, seven
influential scholars trace the global strategies
of the world's most powerful
countries during the past 100 years. Through
authoritative chapters on each
great power, readers will learn how these
countries redefined their interests
in response to momentous changes and
reshaped the world so that it bears only
slight resemblance to the world of
1900. The scholars and their areas of
expertise are Professors Robert A. Pastor
(United States), Stanley Hoffman of
Harvard University (France), Josef Joffe,
Editor of Suddeutsche Zeitung
(Germany), Robert Legvold of Columbia University
(Soviet Union/Russia),
Robert J. Lieber of Georgetown University (Great
Britain), Michael
Oksenberg of Stanford University (China), and Kenneth Pyle of
the University
of Washington (Japan). In A Century's Journey, Robert A. Pastor
and six other
preeminent foreign policy scholars argue that the key to
understanding the
world's future lies in how the great powers shaped the
twentieth century -
from a world of conquest and exclusive spheres-of-influence
to one of
pluralism, market-driven openness and international institutions. In
contrast
to some proponents of concepts like globalization, "the clash
of
civilizations" and "democratic peace," the authors believe
that
nation-states remain the decisive actors on the international
stage".
"A Century's Journey is essential reading for anyone who wishes
to
understand today's complex web of global power." Robert A. Pastor
is
Goodrich C.White Professor of International Relations at Emory
University. He
served on the National Security Council and has been a
consultant to the
Departments of State and Defense, the National Security
Council, and the CIA.
The author or editor of eleven books, he lives in
Atlanta, Georgia.