1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910136711803321

Autore

Legro Jeffrey

Titolo

Rethinking the World : Great Power Strategies and International Order / / Jeffrey W. Legro

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, N.Y. : , : Cornell University Press, , 2005

Baltimore, Md. : , : Project MUSE, , 2021

©2005

ISBN

1-5017-0731-0

0-8014-7383-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (271 pages) : illustrations

Collana

Cornell Studies in Security Affairs

Disciplina

327.1/01

Soggetti

International relations

International organization

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Great power ideas and change -- Explaining change and continuity -- The ebb and flow of American internationalism -- Germany, from outsider to insider -- Overhaul of orthodoxy in Tokugawa Japan and the Soviet Union -- The next century -- Appendix 1: The transformation of economic ideas -- Appendix 2: Analysis of presidential foreign policy.

Sommario/riassunto

Stunning shifts in the worldviews of states mark the modern history of international affairs: how do societies think about-and rethink-international order and security? Japan's "opening," German conquest, American internationalism, Maoist independence, and Gorbachev's "new thinking" molded international conflict and cooperation in their eras. How do we explain such momentous changes in foreign policy-and in other cases their equally surprising absence?The nature of strategic ideas, Jeffrey W. Legro argues, played a critical and overlooked role in these transformations. Big changes in foreign policies are rare because it is difficult for individuals to overcome the inertia of entrenched national mentalities. Doing so depends on a particular nexus of policy expectations, national experience, and ready replacement ideas. In a



sweeping comparative history, Legro explores the sources of strategy in the United States and Germany before and after the world wars, in Tokugawa Japan, and in the Soviet Union. He charts the likely future of American primacy and a rising China in the coming century. Rethinking the World tells us when and why we can expect changes in the way states think about the world, why some ideas win out over others, and why some leaders succeed while others fail in redirecting grand strategy.