The Emergence of Globalism - by Or Rosenboim (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

How competing visions of world order in the 1940s gave rise to the modern concept of globalism

During and after the Second World War, public intellectuals in Britain and the United States grappled with concerns about the future of democracy, the prospects of liberty, and the decline of the imperial system. Without using the term "globalization," they identified a shift toward technological, economic, cultural, and political interconnectedness and developed a "globalist" ideology to reflect this new postwar reality. The Emergence of Globalism examines the competing visions of world order that shaped these debates and led to the development of globalism as a modern political concept.

Shedding critical light on this neglected chapter in the history of political thought, Or Rosenboim describes how a transnational network of globalist thinkers emerged from the traumas of war and expatriation in the 1940s and how their ideas drew widely from political philosophy, geopolitics, economics, imperial thought, constitutional law, theology, and philosophy of science. She presents compelling portraits of Raymond Aron, Owen Lattimore, Lionel Robbins, Barbara Wootton, Friedrich Hayek, Lionel Curtis, Richard McKeon, Michael Polanyi, Lewis Mumford, Jacques Maritain, Reinhold Niebuhr, H. G. Wells, and others. Rosenboim shows how the globalist debate they embarked on sought to balance the tensions between a growing recognition of pluralism on the one hand and an appreciation of the unity of humankind on the other.

An engaging look at the ideas that have shaped today's world, The Emergence of Globalism is a major work of intellectual history that is certain to fundamentally transform our understanding of the globalist ideal and its origins.

From the Back Cover

"The best study ever written on Anglo-American global thought in the 1940s. Rosenboim's insightful, cutting-edge book will enjoy a lasting impact."--Samuel Moyn, author of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History

"A pleasure to read. This excellent book stands out as a major contribution to our growing understanding of the history of twentieth-century international thought. Rosenboim forces us to rethink that history, and by implication how we interpret international relations today."--Lucian M. Ashworth, author of A History of International Thought

Review Quotes

"A major work of intellectual history."---Karen Shook, Times Higher Education

"Finalist for the TSA/CUP Prize, Transatlantic Studies Association and Cambridge University Press"

"Gathering, evaluating, and in some cases rehabilitating a host of philosophers, geographers, economists, planners, jurists, and theists, Rosenboim offers a master class on global thinking at the end of what Albert Camus called 'more than twenty years of an insane history: ' the First World War, the Great Depression, Hitler's rise, Stalin's purges, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, the Holocaust, the Iron Curtain and, finally, 'a world threatened by nuclear destruction.'"---Jonathan Hunt, H-Diplo Roundtable Review

"One of CHOICE's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2017"

"Shortlisted for the 2018 Gladstone Prize, Royal Historical Society"

"Stimulating."---Udi Greenberg, Lawfare Blog

"This book is a tour de force on the theories of political philosophers from Great Britain, the US, and Western Europe dealing with the creation of a stable world order in the era emerging just before World War II to the middle of the Cold War. Rosenboim, a political research fellow (Cambridge), presents in a most impressive manner a wide range of American and European intellectual elites' approach to the study and ultimate creation of a structured world order."-- "Choice"

"Winner of the 2019 Francisco Guiccardini Prize for Best Book in Historical International Relations, International Studies Association"

About the Author

Or Rosenboim is a research fellow in politics at Queens' College, University of Cambridge. She was co-awarded the prestigious Prix Raymond Aron in 2014.