Entanglements in World Politics

Peter J. Katzenstein is the Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies at Cornell University. His work addresses issues of political economy, security and culture in world politics. In 2020 he was named the 26th recipient of the Johan Skytte Prize. He is the author, co-author, editor and co-editor of more than 40 books, edited volumes or monographs and over 100 articles or book chapters. Recent books include Uncertainty and Its Discontents: Worldviews in World Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Downfall: The End of the American Order (co-edited with Jonathan Kirshner, 2022); and Protean Power: Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World Politics (co-edited with the late Lucia Seybert, Cambridge University Press, 2018).  Katzenstein served as President of the American Political Science Association from 2008-09, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Science in 1987, the American Philosophical Society in 2009 and the British Academy in 2015. He holds six honorary degrees.

• Introduction: 'an imaginary knowledge of the perfect truth' meets the risk-uncertainty conundrum; 1. Worldviews and small and large worlds; 2. Small and large worlds, post-Newtonianism and para-humanism; 3. Theories, models and methods; 4. Risk and uncertainty in finance; 5. The missiles of 1962; 6. Global warming and artificial intelligence; 7. Control and protean power in small and large worlds; Conclusion: re-sizing worlds.

'International Relations has found its Tolstoy! The hard problem of uncertainty in world politics has found its match. Dancing nimbly on the cutting edge of the sciences and humanities, jumping deftly from the subatomic to the geopolitical, Katzenstein constructs a protean world view for navigating the political, financial and environmental uncertainties and risks of the twenty-first century. He does so with a humility and humour uncommon in academic treatises. If you are looking for a ray of hope in a time of dark fears and creeping nihilism, read this wickedly smart book.' James Der Derian, Michael Hintze Chair of International Security, University of Sydney