Order Wars and Floating Balance

Reviews / Votes

'Drawing on Clausewitz, Confucius and other East Asian and European theorists, this capacious book's call for recognition of differences among different communities moves beyond binary thought and the conceptual and political cul-de-sac of modernity. This is an ambitious and thought-provoking effort addressing a political problem that none of us can any longer neglect.' - Peter J. Katzenstein, Professor of International Studies, Cornell University, USA

'An important and timely book to our understanding of international order, in particular when the rising powers in the power transition process are non-Western countries. Neatly framed, balanced, informed, lucid and important, this book with the painstaking efforts convincingly deconstructs the common sense on the incommensurability between the West and the Rest, regardless such rivalry is based on either historical or cultural grounds. This is particularly meaningful to Chinese IR which has long been dominated by the parochial position on the heterogeneous nature between Chinese and Western culture and hence has spent thirty years on Chinese IR theory. This book has pointed out a new direction of theoretical studies for both Western and non-Western IR scholars.' - Lu Peng, Research Fellow, Nanjing University, China

'Herberg-Rothe and Son provide a tantalizing mixture of philosophic insights applied to realist problems. They offer promising pathways around the binary formulations that so easily foster international conflicts.' - T.J. Pempel, Jack M. Forcey Professor, University of California, Berkeley

'Andreas Herberg-Rothe and Key-young Son revisit the legacy of great thinkers of Europe and East Asia-Hegel, Clausewitz, Confucius, Schmitt and Arendt- in search of fresh ideas to overcome seemingly intractable contradictions of the contemporary era. This book, which blends political philosophy with international relations theory, is no easy reading, but it is certainly thought-provoking and intellectually rewarding.' - Artyom Lukin, Deputy Director for Research, School of Regional and International Studies, Far Eastern Federal University, Russia

'All civilisations, it can be rightly argued, stand to gain from pondering the messages of this volume.' - Beatrice Heuser, Professor of International Relations (Politics), School of Social & Political Sciences, University of Glasgow