Global Crisis and Insecurity
The Human Condition, Darkly

Questions why we struggle to collectively address the challenges of the global crisis despite widespread recognition of its existence?

Paul James (Author)

9781009614269, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 June 2025

388 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.737 kg

'This diagnosis of our contemporary condition is extensive and largely accurate. Paul James captures the contemporary sense of global crisis well.' David Chandler, International Affairs

From the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, to the escalating effects of climate change, public consciousness of existential threat waxes and wanes. Despite the occasional intense capacity to imagine the global consequences of our cumulative actions, we seem to lack a collective will to act alternatively and systematically to conserve the fundamental conditions for human life. This book confronts the basic challenges of insecurity, violence, genocide, refugee displacement and technoscientific intrusions on embodiment and identity – but it also points to other worlds that are possible. It argues for an engaged cosmopolitanism, grounded in place and guided by local and global debates around principles of what constitutes good ways of living. In order to create a positive change, we must better understand the human condition in crisis, the causes of the global crisis and the possible pathways to human flourishing.

Preface
Part I. The Dark Matter of Our Time: 1. The future of humanity does not look good
2. Redefining basic concepts
Part II. Confronting Global Contradictions: 3. The existential unsettling of security
4. Descending into postcolonial violence
5. Disrupting the hopes of reconciliation
6. Dehumanizing refugees
7. Abstracting embodiment
Part III. Struggling for Positive Human Development: 8. The ontological weight of human security: 9. Reconsidering humanitarian intervention
10. Creating capacities for human development
11. Bringing Cosmopolitanism down to earth
12. Moving towards a manifesto
Appendix: a note on method
Glossary for engaged practice
References.

Subject Areas: Social theory [JHBA]