Global Rivalries: From the Cold War to Iraq - Hardcover

Pijl, Kees Van Der

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0745325424 ISBN 13: 9780745325422

Publisher: Pluto Press, 2006

Synopsis

This is a groundbreaking new work from a leading scholar in the field of international relations. Offering a highly original analysis of world events, especially in the light of the Iraq War, Kees van der Pijl explores the history and development of relations between major countries in the international community, and the impact that successive wars and changes in the global political economy have had on the way states relate to each other today.

Tracing the liberal state structure back to the closing stages of the English Civil War and settlement in North America, he argues that the rise of the English-speaking West has created rivalries between contender states that are never entirely put to rest. With each round of Western expansion, new rivalries are created. Offering a truly global analysis that covers every area of the world—from Europe and America to China, the Middle East, Latin America and Russia—he analyses the development of international relations after World War II, and questions whether the neoliberal project and its human rights ideology have collapsed back into authoritarianism under the guise of the "war on terror."

About this title

About the Author:

Kees van der Pijl is a Fellow of the Centre for Global Political Economy and Professor Emeritus at the University of Sussex. His books include The Foreign Encounter in Myth and Religion (Pluto, 2010), the Deutscher prize-winning Nomads, Empires, States (Pluto, 2007), Global Rivalries from the Cold War to Iraq (Pluto, 2006) and The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class (new edition, 2012).

Review:

"remarkable...one of those rare books that will change the way thoughtful people think...' Gabriel Kolko 'Kees van der Pijl has written a remarkable panorama of both the substance and meaning of recent world history, one of those rare books that will change the way thoughtful people think. Global Rivalries is rich in insight, making coherence of disparate events, and it offers again and again fresh insights into the way our war-torn, beleaguered world has operated. This is a basic book, extremely well documented, that will force people to think critically about history and the world we now live in." --Gabriel Kolko

About this edition

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0745325424
• ISBN 13: 9780745325422
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 488