Scientific Cosmology and International Orders

Bentley B. Allan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at The Johns Hopkins University. He has published articles in International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and European Journal of International Relations. He is the co-editor, with Ted Hopf, of Making Identity Count: Building a National Identity Database (2016).

• 1. Introduction: science and the transformation of international politics; 2. Cosmology and change in international orders; 3. Natural philosophy in balance of power Europe, 1550–1815; 4. Darwin, social knowledge, and development in the British Colonial Office and the League of Nations, 1850–1945; 5. Neoclassical economics and the growth imperative in the world bank and postwar international order, 1945–2000; 6. Conclusion: the future of cosmological change.

'Bentley B. Allan's Scientific Cosmology and International Orders demonstrates that it remains possible for scholars of international relations to write bold, original, and ambitious books. There have been other books written about world order, but nothing like this one. By developing and deploying the concept of cosmology, he considers how fundamental ways of understanding knowledge, origins, and the relationship between the self and the universe have worked their way through states to transform the fundamental workings of international order. Allan broadens our understanding of the relationship between science and global society, and in doing so tackles the question of international change in a highly provocative way. This is 'grand theory' at its very best.' Michael N. Barnett, George Washington University, Washington DC