The New Twenty Years Crisis: A Critique of International Relations, 19992019

Product Description The Liberal Order Is Decaying. Will It Survive, And If Not, What Will Replace It? On The Eightieth Anniversary Of The Publication Of E.H. CarrS The Twenty Years Crisis, 19191939, Philip Cunliffe Revisits This Classic Text, Juxtaposing Its Claims With Contemporary Debates On The Rise And Fall Of The Liberal International Order. The New Twenty Years Crisis Reveals That The Liberal International Order Experienced A TwentyYear Cycle Of Decline From 1999 To 2019. In Contrast To Claims That The Order Has Been Undermined By Authoritarian Challengers, Cunliffe Argues That The Primary Drivers Of The Crisis Are Internal. He Shows That The Heavily Ideological International Relations Theory That Has Developed Since The End Of The Cold War Is Clouded By Utopianism, Replacing Analysis With Aspiration And Expressing The Interests Of Power Rather Than Explaining Its Functioning. As A Result, A Growing Tendency To Discount Political Alternatives Has Made Us Less Able To Adapt To Political Change. In Search Of A Solution, This Book Argues That Breaking Through The Current Impasse Will Require Not Only Dissolving The New Forms Of Utopianism, But Also Pushing Past The Fear That The TwentyFirst Century Will Repeat The Mistakes Of The Twentieth. Only Then Can We Finally Escape The Twenty Years Crisis. By Reflecting On CarrS Foundational Work, The New Twenty Years Crisis Offers An Opportunity To Take Stock Of The Current State Of International Order And International Relations Theory. Review Books That Threaten To Shake The Foundations Of An Academic Discipline Are Rare. Rarer Still Are Those That Manage To Revitalise A Figure The Discipline Had Long Regarded As Consigned To The Dustbin Of History To Level The Disciplinary Terrain In Such A Comprehensive And Courageous Manner As Phillip CunliffeS The New Twenty Years Crisis. Taking No Prisoners, Cunliffe Brutally And Brilliantly Uses E.H. Carr To Critique The Underlying Utopianism Of Much, If Not All, Contemporary International Relations. Although The Book Targets The Discipline As A Whole, The Most Trenchant Critiques Are Aimed At Those Parts Of The Field That Consider Themselves The Most Critical. This WonT Win Cunliffe Many Friends, But Great Books Would Never Get Written If That Was The Aim. You May Not Agree With CunliffeS Conclusions, But If Nothing Else, He Will Spark A LongOverdue Conversation About What It Means To Be Critical. Essential Reading For Anyone Interested In International Relations As A Field Of Study, As Well As Those Interested In Global Order. Colin Wight, The University Of Sydney And Author Of Rethinking Terrorism: Terrorism, Violence And The StateThe New Twenty Years Crisis Offers Something DifferentA Carr For Our Time. Cunliffe Surfaces And Pursues CarrS Timely Warning About The Blindness That Comes From An Elite Hostility To Mass Politics; But He Does So With Discrimination And Without The Distorting Deference That Is Sometimes Paid To The Forefathers Of The Discipline. The Result Is A Deeply Engaged, Unapologetically Political, And Wonderfully Readable Book. Alison Mcqueen, Stanford UniversityThe Historian E. H. Carr Famously Argued In The Twenty Years Crisis That Western Peacemakers At Versailles Built The PostWorld War I Order On Utopian Illusions And Liberal Aspirations That Led Two Decades Later To Economic Upheaval, Authoritarian Nationalism, And GreatPower War. In This Lively Polemic, Cunliffe Contends That In The Aftermath Of The Cold War, The United States And Other Democratic States Did It Again. The Book Will Inspire A Useful Debate. Foreign Affairs About The Author Philip Cunliffe Is Senior Lecturer In International Conflict At The University Of Kent.