Abstract
Violence is as old as humanity. Organized violence or war is as old as the first organized societies. Throughout history most states were preparing for, engaging in, or recovering from war. Yet recently the threat or use of violence in international relations, known as geopolitics, has sharply diminished as nearly all states are at peace all or most of the time. The reason is globalization.
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet our enemies.
George Washington
A country cannot simultaneously prepare and prevent war.
Albert Einstein
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Notes
For broad overviews, see J. Martin Rochester, Between Two Epochs: What Is Ahead for America, the World, and Global Politics in the 21st Century (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002);
David Held and Anthony McGrew, eds., The Global Transformations Reader (Cambridge: Polity Press/Blackwell, 2003)
K.J. Holsti, Taming the Sovereigns: International Change in International Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Peter Singer, One World: The Ethics of Globalization (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004)
Edward Cornish, Futuring: The Exploration of the Future (Bethesda, Md.: World Future Society, 2004)
Marvin J. Cetron and Owen Davies, 53 Trends Now Shaping the Future (Bethesda, Md.: World Future Society, 2005).
Charles W. Kegley and Gregory A. Raymond, The Global Future (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2006).
For pessimists, see Yale H. Ferguson and Richard W. Mansbach, Remapping Global Politics: History’s Revenge and Future Shock (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004);
Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Viking, 2005);
Louise Amoore, ed., The Global Resistance R.eader: Concepts and Issues (New York: Routledge, 2005)
Jan Aart Scholte, Globalization: A Critical Introduction (London: Palgrave, 2005);
Worldwatch Institute, State ofthe World 2007 (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007).
For optimists, see Jadish Bhagwati, In Defense of Globalization (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004);
Thomas Friedman, The Earth Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005);
John F. Stack and Luis Hebron, Globalization: Debunking the Myths (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2006).
Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (New York: Anchor Books, 2000).
Parts of this book appeared in William Nester, International R.elations: Politics and Economics in the 21st Century (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2001).
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© 2010 William R. Nester
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Nester, W.R. (2010). Introduction. In: Globalization, War, and Peace in the Twenty-first Century. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117396_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117396_1
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