SIS Book Launch: Amitav Acharya, The Once and Future World Order

Moderated by SIS Seniors Ido Leidner, Marisa McBurney, and Emma Pohl.

About the Book:

The epic story of the past, present, and future of world order that "brilliantly" (Kishore Mahbubani, author of Living the Asian Century) argues why the decline of the West may be a good thing for the world. Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, the West has been in crisis. Social unrest, political polarization, and the rise of other great powers—especially China—threaten to unravel today’s Western-led world order. Many fear this would lead to global chaos. But the West has never had a monopoly on order. Surveying five thousand years of global history, political scientist Amitav Acharya reveals that world order—the political architecture enabling cooperation and peace among nations—existed long before the rise of the West. Moving from ancient Sumer, India, Greece, and Mesoamerica, through medieval caliphates and Eurasian empires into the present, Acharya shows that humanitarian values, economic interdependence, and rules of inter-state conduct emerged across the globe over millennia. History suggests order will endure even as the West retreats. In fact, the end of Western dominance offers us the opportunity to build a better world, where non-Western nations find more voice, power, and prosperity. Instead of fearing the future, the West should learn from history and cooperate with the Rest to forge a more equitable order. This is the definitive account of how world order evolved and why it will survive the decline of the West.

Find more information here.

About the Author:

Amitav Acharya is the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance and Distinguished Professor at the School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC. Previously he was a Professor at York University, Toronto and the University of Bristol, U.K. He is currently Honorary Professor, Rhodes University and Professor Extraordinarius, University of Pretoria (both in South Africa), and Guest Professor, Nankai University, China. He was the inaugural Boeing Company Chair in International Relations at the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University, Fellow of Harvard’s Asia Center and John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Christensen Fellow at Oxford.

His books include The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West (Basic Books 2025); The Making of Global International Relations (Cambridge 2019: with Barry Buzan); Constructing Global Order (Cambridge 2018); The End of American World Order (Polity 2014, 2018); The Making of Southeast Asia (Cornell 2013); and Whose Ideas Matter (Cornell 2009).

His essays have appeared in International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Asian Studies, Foreign Affairs, Journal of Peace Research, International Affairs, Perspectives on Politics, and World Politics. He has written op-eds for New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Times of India, and other newspapers around the world, and appeared on news media such as CNN International, BBC TV and BBC World Service Radio. He is the first non-Western scholar to be elected (for 2014-15) the President of the International Studies Association (ISA), the largest and most influential global network in international studies. He has received three ISA Distinguished Scholar Awards. In 2020, he received American University’s highest honor: Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award.

About the Panelists:

Ravi Agrawal is the editor in chief of Foreign Policy. He is also the host of FP Live, the magazine's video channel and podcast, on which he regularly interviews world leaders and policymakers. Before joining FP in 2018, Agrawal worked at CNN for more than a decade in full-time roles spanning three continents, including as the network’s New Delhi bureau chief and correspondent. He has shared a Peabody Award and three Emmy nominations for his work as a TV producer, and his writing for FP was part of a series nominated for a 2020 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary. Agrawal is the author of India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World’s Largest Democracy. He is a graduate of Harvard University.

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and a Distinguished Professor in the School of International Service at American University, and a Global Fellow of the Wilson Center. Ahmed’s career has included distinguished posts in both academia and public service. Highlights from the past four decades of Ahmed’s academic career include appointments such as: Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; the First Distinguished Chair of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD; the Iqbal Fellow (Chair of Pakistan Studies) and Fellow of Selwyn College at the University of Cambridge; and teaching positions at Harvard and Princeton Universities. Ahmed dedicated more than three decades to the Civil Service of Pakistan, the senior-most cadre of the Central Superior Services of Pakistan, where his posts included Commissioner in Balochistan, Political Agent in the Tribal Areas, including Waziristan, and Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland. Ahmed’s critically acclaimed projects include academic books, documentaries, plays, poetry, a feature film, and a comic book. Ahmed’s most recent books are America at the Crossroads: Race, Islam, and Leadership (2025) and The Flying Man: The Golden Age of Islam and Its Contribution to Science and Philosophy (2024).

Host or Publisher School of International Service