Governing The World

Product Description

From the acclaimed award-winning author of Dark Continent" & " Hitlers Empire" comes a visionary far-reaching history of two centuries of international government that also goes to the heart of current world crises. In 1815 the shocked & exhausted victors of the decades of fighting that had engulfed Europe for a generation agreed to a new system for keeping the peace. Instead of independent states changing sides doing deals & betraying one another a new collegial Concert of Europe would ensure that the brutal chaos of the Napoleonic Wars never happened again. Mark Mazowers remarkable new book recreates two centuries of international government
- the struggle to spread values & build institutions to bring order to an anarchic & dangerous state system. It shows how what started as a European story became the framework for todays world as free traders communists & nationalists all put forward their own radical visions of international harmony. Reviews: "A significant contribution to historical scholarship... Simply for giving us this lucid account Mazower deserves our gratitude. But Governing the World is also an intriguing read because of the strong argument he places within it... This new work certainly gave this reviewer an awful lot to think about
- to an author there may be no greater praise than that". (Paul Kennedy " Financial Times"). " This is a book that needed to be written...[ Governing the World] is truly illuminating... The story is a fascinating one & Mazower tells it with authority & verve". (Adam Zamoyski " Literary Review"). " Mazower has strengthened his claim to be the preeminent historian of a generation. Combining breathtaking originality with meticulous & gloriously eclectic research he offers the most convincing explanation yet articulated... On rare occasions a work of history emerges that not only fundamentally refashions our understanding of the past it enables us to reassess the present & with luck influence our future. I advise everyone who is concerned about our precarious situation to learn from & absorb Mazowers remarkable achievement". (Misha Glenny). " Bursting with ideas about present & future as well as past". (Stephen Howe " Independent" Books Of The Year). "A prodigious work: a master historians reconstruction of how individuals & nations since 1815 have sought to promote national interests in ever more complicated international settings. A dramatic novel account of ideas & institutions in collision with hard realities. Indispensable also for its full & subtle account of American policies since 1917 always with a fine touch for the hitherto neglected person or little noticed moment that illuminates historic processes. Profound relevant & morally instructive
- & a pleasure to read". (Fritz Stern). About the author: Mark Mazower is Ira D. Wallach Professor of World Order Studies & Professor of History Professor of History at Columbia University. He is the author of " Hitlers Greece: The Experience of Occupation 1941-44" " Dark Continent: Europes Twentieth Century" " The Balkans: A Short History" (which won the Wolfson Prize for History) " Salonica: City of Ghosts" (which won both the Duff Cooper Prize & the Runciman Award) & " Hitlers Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe". He has also taught at Birkbeck College University of London Sussex University & Princeton. He lives in New York."