Distant Proximities Dynamics Beyond Globalization

"The recently bygone bipolar world of the Cold War looks simple in comparison to the complexities of today's globalizing era. Professor James Rosenau, in this wide-ranging masterwork of conceptual synthesis, develops a new vocabulary--distant proximities, fragmegration, glocalization--to help us explore the contradictory impact on our times of worldwide economic and electronic integration; religious, ethnic, and tribal hatreds; information overload; and terrorism. Individuals, communities, nation-states, and international structures are all struggling to accommodate the dynamics of today's unprecedented social and economic change. Rosenau's powerful yet nuanced analysis encompasses the agenda of our times--income disparities, human rights violations, corruption, high tech violence--and he leaves us pondering whether global and community governance will be able to cope with the challenges of a fragmegrative world."--Richard H. Solomon, President, U.S. Institute of Peace "For some years now, James N. Rosenau has been writing imaginatively about the systemic role of empowered individuals on the world stage, utilizing as his organizing principle possible complementarities in opposing tendencies--as in the title of this latest book. But never before has his work seemed so relevant to this morning's headline while probing so deeply into the very foundations of social space/time. And behind it all stands an enduring commitment to open-minded inquiry: 'checkableupableness,' Rosenau calls it. In a discipline consumed by Methodenstreite, here is an important book that at once soars above, and uncovers powerful fields of forces beneath, the standard fare."--John Gerard Ruggie, Harvard University "Like so much of Rosenau's work,Distant Proximitiesis enormously thoughtful and insightful. It pushes the way we think about global politics dramatically beyond the traditional or eurocentric model of states in a state system and, though highly abstract, actually deals with issues that matter to most people in today's globalizing world. It is classically Rosenau."--Richard W. Mansbach, Iowa State University, author ofPolitics, Authority, Identity, and Change "This book contains all of Rosenau's strengths. It is imaginative--replete with novel insights, concepts, and ideas. It looks to the future rather than to the past. It is based on a very broad literature that goes far beyond normal disciplinary confines. Rosenau always searches for the new and interesting, and for those anomalies that set the mind to look for explanations. He takes his own advice to attempt 'theoretical jailbreaks,' and to dare to tread where others are more timid. The book is very well written, and its author is to be applauded for getting his readers to 'think outside the box.'"--Kal Holsti, University of British Columbia, author ofThe State, War, and the State of WarRosenau, James N. is the author of 'Distant Proximities Dynamics Beyond Globalization', published 2003 under ISBN 9780691095240 and ISBN 0691095248.