Before the West
The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders

Zarakol presents the first comprehensive history of the international relations in 'the East', and rethinks 'sovereignty', 'order-making' and 'decline'.

Ay?e Zarakol (Author)

9781108971676, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 March 2022

300 pages, 4 b/w illus. 3 maps
22.7 x 15 x 1.6 cm, 0.49 kg

'This ingenious book does for IR what Marshall Hodgson did for world economic history. By avoiding Western teleology, Ay?e Zarakol brilliantly reveals the world of “international” relations that existed before the world of Westphalian Europe, but which has for so long been hidden behind the wall of Eurocentrism. Accordingly, the book provides a compelling example of how historical IR can tell us new things about the fundamentals of world politics.' John M. Hobson FBA, University of Sheffield

How would the history of international relations in 'the East' be written if we did not always read the ending – the Rise of the West and the decline of the East – into the past? What if we did not assume that Asia was just a residual category, a variant of 'not-Europe', but saw it as a space of with its own particular history and sociopolitical dynamics, not defined only by encounters with European colonialism? How would our understanding of sovereignty, as well as our theories about the causes of the decline of Great Powers and international orders, change as a result? For the first time, Before the West offers a grand narrative of (Eur)Asia as a space connected by normatively and institutionally overlapping successive world orders originating from the Mongol Empire. It also uses that history to rethink the foundational concepts and debates of international relations, such as order and decline.

1. What Is the East?
Part I. Cihannüma: 2. Making the East: Chinggisid World Orders
3. Dividing the East: Post-Chinggisid World Orders
4. Expanding the East: Post-Timurid World Orders
5. How the East made the world: Eurasia and beyond
Part II. Lessons of History: 6. Rise and fall of Eastern World Orders
7. Uses and abuses of macro-history in international relations.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Social theory [JHBA], General & world history [HBG]