Beyond Liberal Order, a collection of essays by historians, political scientists, and international relations scholars, is an elegant and thought-provoking exercise. It seeks to link the dizzyingly varied transnational histories of eastern Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and Oceania in the two registers: first, the “Global Indian Ocean” (prominent in the history discipline) and, second, the notion of the liberal international order in international relations and a key precept of the Biden administration's foreign policy. In the introductory essay that frames the collection, Harry Verhoeven sets out the core theoretical problematique that provides the impetus for the collection. The Pax Americana that has dominated the international system since the end of the Second World War and especially since the end of the Cold War has been, at least notionally, built on universalizing liberal norms of cooperation and openness. However, the most powerful institutions that lend force...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
