From PUP, the introduction to Why Wilson Matters: The Origin of American Liberal Internationalism and Its Crisis Today by Tony Smith. Beyond liberal internationalism: Liberal internationalists have spoken admiringly of "the idea that is America", in Anne-Marie Slaughter's phrase, but also betrayed its limits. Hoping for the best against Trump: Is there any reason for liberals to feel optimistic after a year of political disasters and the election of an ignorant, narcissistic, authoritarian loudmouth as US president? David P. Forsythe on the death knell of American exceptionalism under Trump. First on the White House agenda is the collapse of the global order — next, war?
From terrorism to populism, today's sweeping unrest has its roots in brutal competition: Samuel Moyn reviews Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra (and more and more and more and more). Liberalism to blame: What are the arguments for seeing liberal triumphalism which began with the collapse of Communism in the 1990s as having produced the backlash we are witnessing today? Francis Fukuyama, the man who declared the "end of history", fears for democracy's future. Garry Kasparov and Thor Halvorssen on why the rise of authoritarianism is a global catastrophe. Deutschland uber us: How's it going over in the last bastion of liberal democracy? Germany's taboos, once a bulwark against the far Right, may now be enabling it.
Kyle Lascurettes (Lewis and Clark): The Concert of Europe and Great Power Governance Today: What Can the Order of 19th-Century Europe Teach Policymakers about International Order in the 21st Century? World on brink of "post-Western age" as influence of Europe and US declines, warns report. Russia wants pragmatic relations with the United States but also is hoping for the creation of a "post-West world order", foreign minister Sergey Lavrov says. Henry Meyer and Onur Ant on Alexander Dugin, the one Russian linking Putin, Erdogan and Trump. What do Trump, Putin, the Presidents of the Czech Republic and Philippines, right-wing anti-EU Europeans and the British Foreign Minister have in common? Their sense of humour. Nick Cohen on how the lunatic fringe conquered world politics.
In a new letter, Pope Francis tells activists to stand up to populists.
