A leading international relations expert uncovers the key stages that led from the end of the Cold War to the War in Ukraine.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, warnings of a new Cold War proliferated. In fact, argues Gilbert Achcar in this timely new account, the New Cold War has been ongoing since the late 1990s.
Racing to solidify its position as the last remaining superpower, the US alienated Russia and China, pushing them closer and rebooting the ‘old’ Cold War with disastrous implications. Vladimir Putin’s consequent rise and imperialist reinvention, along with Xi Jinping’s own ascendancy and increasingly autocratic tendencies, would culminate, respectively, in the invasion of Ukraine and mounting tensions over Taiwan and trade.
Was all this inevitable? What comes after Ukraine, and what might the contours of a more peaceful world look like? These questions and many others are addressed in this essential book by one of the most seasoned analysts of international relations.
With erudition and sobering analysis, Achcar argues that only by understanding this new landscape can we begin to imagine the contours of an alternative, more peaceful world.
What People Are Saying
"[A] powerful, necessary, and timely book." The Irish Times
"The strength of Achcar’s The New Cold War lies in its incisive clarity in objectively narrating how this new era of inter-imperial tensions developed, without losing sight of the legitimacy of self-determination struggles against all imperialist countries in the New Cold War. Such a balanced clarity is needed as a principled position of supporting self-determination struggles in a new era of inter imperialist rivalry has come increasingly under fire by propagandists of the U.S., Chinese, and Russian regimes." Promise Li, New Politics
"Learned and incisive, ranging easily from broad geopolitical analysis to the details of policy formation, this masterful study of the new cold war of the past thirty years—by the scholar who first identified and studied it— is an indispensable guide to the current global disorder and its ominous portent." Noam Chomsky
"Gilbert Achcar has long been warning of a new Cold War, and this volume is perfectly timed to anatomize the newest stage of the conflict. No one who hopes to move beyond complacent rhetoric and slogans can afford to miss this essential book." Samuel Moyn, Yale University
About the Author
Gilbert Achcar is Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His publications include the critically acclaimed The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives, and most recently The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising.