Rethinking the 1990s
Liberal World Order-Building in the Aftermath of the Cold War
G John Ikenberry editor Peter Trubowitz editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:12th Nov '25
Currently unavailable, currently targeted to be due back around 29th January 2026, but could change
In the decade following the end of the Cold War, Western democracies stood victorious, brimming with optimism and grand designs. Today, the 1990s look less like a great triumph for liberal democracy and Western modernity than a decade in which post-Cold War excitement and anticipation obscured a slowly gathering global storm. At a time of intensifying geopolitical rivalry, economic nationalism, and ideological extremism, Rethinking the 1990s brings together a group of leading political scientists and historians who look back on that era of world-historical change to identify choices and pathways that have brought the world to this unsettled moment. Authors explore whether the United States and other countries could have made different choices in the 1990s to place the world order then envisioned by Western policymakers on a firmer foundation. Written in a highly engaging style, these wide-ranging essays offer new insight into the strategic choices, political trade-offs, and missed opportunities of that historic decade as well as much-needed perspective on the international pressures and domestic cross-pressures fracturing the liberal order today.
As we strive to understand the profound upheaval in the international order, it makes sense to go back to the 1990s, a time when liberalism seemed triumphant and ask if its decline was inevitable. To tackle this question, Ikenberry and Trubowitz have assembled a dream team of political scientists and historians, who walk us through topics ranging from economic and financial hegemony to NATO's march eastward, to the emergence of a global human rights regime. In the end, the rich scholarship in this book provides us with no easy answer and instead urges us to unpack our long-standing assumptions about the source of the order's expansion and the origins of its current challenges. It is a critical read at this uncertain moment. * Stacie E. Goddard, Wellesley College, Betty Freyhof Johnson '44 Professor of Political Science, Associate Provost, Wellesley in the World *
Coming off the success of the Cold War, the 1990s were a breakthrough moment for the American international liberal project. Yet, in retrospect, the seeds of backlash and opposition both inside the West and beyond were being sown. This masterful collaborative volume brings leading IR thinkers together to assess the legacies, positive and negative alike, of this fateful decade. * Daniel Deudney, Johns Hopkins University *
Rethinking the 1990s is the best book available on how the world tried to get to grips with the sudden end of the Cold War. If the 1990s is the crucial decade for understanding our times, this book provides an excellent way of grasping what its key issues actually were. * O. A. Westad, Yale University, author of The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Lessons from History *
ISBN: 9780197813102
Dimensions: 234mm x 156mm x 21mm
Weight: 526g
376 pages