Governing the World

Mark Mazower's acclaimed book recreates two centuries of international government - the struggle to bring order to an anarchic and dangerous world. From the plans for peace that arose out of the Napoleonic Wars to our present institutions, it shows how what started as a European story became the framework for today's world, as free traders, communists, utopians and nationalists all put forward their own radical visions of global harmony.

At a time when when our faith in international cooperation is waning, the UN is discredited, American power is diminishing and global finance dominates, Mazower asks, can anyone really govern the world?