Why read The False Promise of Liberal Order?

Book cover of The False Promise of Liberal Order: Nostalgia, Delusion and the Rise of Trump

Book description

In an age of demagogues, hostile great powers and trade wars, foreign policy traditionalists dream of restoring liberal international order. This order, they claim, ushered in seventy years of peace and prosperity and saw post-war America domesticate the world to its values.

The False Promise of Liberal Order exposes…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The False Promise of Liberal Order as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Philip Cunliffe

Author

Despite having been maligned for so long in the British academy, in this book Porter shows the continuing vitality of the intellectual tradition of classical realism for understanding power politics today. He gratifyingly sweeps away the dewy-eyed nostalgia for the so-called ‘rules-based order’ that supposedly crumbled on Trump’s election to the White House in 2016. In addition to usefully reminding us of all the hypocrisy bound up with liberal internationalism, Porter also forces us to reckon with the core question of all politics – how far power is needed to underpin political order. Although I demur from some of his…

From Philip's list on The best books to understand the rise and fall of liberal international order in the 21st century.