Part I. Beyond the Westphalian Gaze: 1. Introduction; 2. The Historical-Sociological Approach to Understanding Order in International Systems; 3. Collective Beliefs and Visions of Order; Part II. The East Asian Sino-Centric Order: 4. Gathering All Under Heaven: East Asian Collective Beliefs and International Society; 5. The East Asian Inter-State Society and the Westphalian System; Part III. The Islamic Cultural-Historical Community: 6. Lords of the Auspicious Conjunction: The Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires and the Islamic Ecumene; 7. Collective Imagination and the Conduct of Inter-Polity Relations; Part IV. Collective Imagination among the Polities of Southeast Asia: 8. The Galactic Polities of Southeast Asia; 9. Inter-State Relations and the Encounter with the Colonial Powers; 10. Conclusion: Viewing the World in One's own Image.
Spruyt takes an inter-disciplinary approach to explain how collective belief systems organized three non-European societies c.1500–1900, and how these polities engaged the European colonial powers.
Hendrik Spruyt is Norman Dwight Harris Professor of International Relations at Northwestern University, Illinois. Among his publications are: The Sovereign State and Its Competitors (1994), winner of the J. David Greenstone Award; Ending Empire: Contested Sovereignty and Territorial Partition (2005); and, with Alexander Cooley, Contracting States: Sovereign Transfers in International Relations (2009).
'The World Imagined is a path-breaking book of immense stature. It
opens with a highly sophisticated tour d'horizon of the fields of
anthropology, history, IR and sociology. Through this
inter-discipliary dialogue, Spruyt builds a persuasive case for why
we need a deeply interpretive approach to understanding historic
international societies. He then provides the pay-off with three
detailed studies of non-western international societies (East Asian
tributary system; Southeast Asian kingdoms; Islamic empires): in
each case, shared beliefs about authority and legitimacy defined
the membership of the society and inscribed its boundaries. A
worthy successor to Spruyt's earlier, and equally brilliant book,
The Sovereign State and its Competitors.' Tim Dunne, Professor of
International Relations and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, The University of
Queensland
'This incredibly refreshing and original book is a bold piece of
big thinking about international politics across time and space.
Going back to first principles, it sheds the parochial and
anachronistic Eurocentrism that has warped and restricted our
understanding of international relations. Instead, Spruyt reveals
how the way various universalistic Asian empires thought about
themselves and others constituted a rich and fascinating variety of
previously unknown international societies.' Jason Sharman, Sir
Patrick Sheehy Professor of International Relations, University of
Cambridge
'With characteristic breadth and boldness, Spruyt makes creative
use of the English School's international society framing to take
us outside IR's theoretical comfort zone of Westphalian territorial
sovereignty assumptions about world order. He opens new ground in
comparing international societies across history, and uses this to
lay foundations for a more global approach to the study of
international relations.' Barry Buzan, Professor Emeritus, London
School of Economics and Political Science
'Skillfully defying the empiricist and presentist orthodoxies that
rule over much of the social sciences today, Hendrik Spruyt
demonstrates the importance of investigating across time, space,
and academic disciplines. Spruyt's critique of the European notions
of international relations, and the comprehensive alternative he
proposes, invites scholars and readers into a candid discussion of
the origins, as well as the prospects, of our global order.' Kaya
Şahin, Associate Professor, Department of History, Indiana
University
'Spruyt explores collective beliefs as the basis of political order
in three historically significant contexts with differing power
structures: the civilizational complexes of the Islamic world, the
East Asian tributary system, and the Southeast Asian galactic
empires. His rich analysis significantly advances our knowledge
about non-European international societies, while his findings
about the marked heterogeneity of the evolutionary encounters
between these civilizations and European Westphalianism and
colonialism push beyond existing English School and constructivist
understandings of how global international society developed. This
book provides an urgent corrective to the flawed expectation of
ultimate convergence with an idealized Western state model. In an
era of 'Westlessness', it is essential reading for all scholars of
international relations.' Evelyn Goh, Shedden Profesor of Strategic
Policy Studies, Australian National University
'This book is a major tour de force. The interdisciplinary approach
delighted me, the insightful study of different polities within a
new comprehensive framework inspired me. Spruyt's approach is
timely for political science to take seriously and gratifying to
see.' Karen Barkey, Haas Distinguished Chair of Religious
Diversity, and Professor, Department of Sociology, University of
California, Berkeley
'Taking the necessary interdisciplinary tract to explore the
Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman empires in relation to their Southeast
Asian counterparts and the Sinocentric tributary system dominating
parts of Asia, this book offers an invaluable contrastive register
of global history … Offering readers a rich, distinctive approach
to accounting for how non-European systems functioned in relation
to engagements with the West …' I. Blumi, Choice
'… this book offers a distinctive perspective on the variety of
historical international orders. It challenges conventional
modernist accounts of the 'expansion' of the Western 'international
society' and the 'formation' of the modern international system.'
Zheng Chen , China International Strategy Review
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