Climate Change And The Nation State: The Realist Case

Description

This is one of those rare books that have something really important to say. Anatol Lieven is telling his fellow realists that at this moment the world s great powers are far more threatened by climate change than they are by each other Ivan Krastev, author of The Light That Failed

In the past two centuries we have experienced wave after wave of overwhelming change. Entire continents have been resettled; there are billions more of us; the jobs done by countless people would be unrecognizable to their predecessors; scientific change has transformed us all in confusing, terrible and miraculous ways.

Anatol Lieven s major new book provides the frame that has long been needed to understand how we should react to climate change. This is a vast challenge, but we have often in the past had to deal with such challenges: the industrial revolution, major wars and mass migration have seen mobilizations of human energy on the greatest scale. Just as previous generations had to face the unwanted and unpalatable, so do we.

In a series of incisive, compelling interventions, Lieven shows how in this emergency our crucial building block is the nation state. The drastic action required both to change our habits and protect ourselves can be carried out not through some vague globalism but through maintaining social cohesion and through our current governmental, fiscal and military structures.

This is a book which will provoke innumerable discussions.

About the Author

Anatol Lieven is a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and a Fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC. He was previously a professor in the War Studies Department of King s College, London. He worked for twelve years as a British foreign correspondent, reporting from South Asia, the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe for The Times and other publications. His books include Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (1998); America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (second edition 2011); Ethical Realism: A Vision for America s Role in the World (with John Hulsman) (2006) and Pakistan: A Hard Country (2011, published by Penguin).