This book is about political orders, historical ones, the current one but also future alternative ones. An understanding of how the contemporary world order came to be what it is and how it may develop in the future, is an exploration of the expansion of the international society of European states across the rest of the globe, its transformation from a society fashioned in Europe and dominated by Europeans into the global international society of today, with its nearly two hundred states, the great majority of which are not European. Such an understanding requires a sense of how other societies operated and developed in the past. In fact, our present international society is puzzling if looked at in isolation.

Of particular interest in the book is the (changing) view on the use of force as a legal/legitimate means in the conduct of international politics. Briefly put: what does the seemingly new attitude towards the use of force as an acceptable means in international relations that we are witnessing today imply for the future world order?

The second edition of the book has been updated in its entirety and features an elaborated theoretical and methodological framework as well as a newly written epilogue on the “Obama Years”.

Mikael Baaz is an Associate Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies and a Senior Lecturer in International Law at the School of Business, Economics and Law, the University of Gothenburg. He is widely published internationally and his papers appear in e.g.: Journal of International Relations and Development; International Studies Review; Asian Politics and Polity; Journal of Political Power; Global Public Health; Peace Review; Journal on the Use of Force and International Law; Asian Journal of International Law; Scandinavian Studies in Law; Leiden Journal of International Law; Journal of International Criminal Justice; Journal of Civil Society; Journal of Resistance Studies; International Journal of Constitutional Law; European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology; International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society; and Journal of Law and Society (2017, forthcoming) Baaz has also contributed to several edited books, including, Ethical Reasoning in International Affairs: Arguments from the Middle Ground, edited by Cornelia Navari (2013) and, Progressivism and US Foreign Policy: American Thinkers on Peace and War during the Interwar Period, edited by Molly Cochran and Cornelia Navari (2017, forthcoming), both published by Palgrave Macmillan.