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Amy Russell

Global Interdependence
	edited by Akira Iriye
	Harvard University Press
	4 stars
	Amy Russell
Historical events are not necessarily sequential; they overlap and interconnect. History is constantly evolving, and the world is changing at an unprecedented rate - be it environmental, social, physical, political or technological.
We are learning by doing, making a "modern" history perhaps hard to define and analyse. But Global Interdependence delivers a fresh, retrospective view on historical events from the second world war onwards, an era when the nation-state gave way to transnationalism, creating an ever-connected world.
As editor Akira Iriye writes in the introduction, "global history has many layers", and Global Interdependence peels back these layers and, more than providing an encyclopaedic recounting of events, examines myriad forces in depth to provide a definitive, thorough account of global development - politically, culturally, economically and environmentally.
Iriye is joined by scholars Wilfried Loth, Thomas W. Zeiler, John McNeill, Peter Engelke and Petra Goedde to deliver a detailed and illuminating account of how the world today took shape. While the authors have their own views, they are unified in their perspective that global history is interconnected. This reflects a key message of the text: that "there has grown a greater consciousness of the unity of humankind, even as men and women have become aware of their diversity".
We begin with the power struggles and mistakes of the US and the Soviet Union that led to the cold war, and an epoch where co-operation and mutual dependence were marred by feelings of insecurity and threat, presenting a "complex world order".

The cold war is followed by the "dynamic era of globalisation", hinging on the US and its free-market principles, which, while increasing the movement of goods, money, services and people, fuelled growth but also led to greater inequality.
It seems inevitable today that an analysis of human advancement in recent decades should include an assessment of our impact on the environment. So from American influence, multilateral trade agreements, neoliberalist policies and multinationalism, we enter the "Anthropocene", an era of industrialisation, expansion of the human populace (both in terms of numbers and territorial space), and a change in resource use.
We move next to a different type of globalisation: culture, which includes a particularly interesting section on gender.
And finally, we end with the "transnationalisation of humankind": a collective consciousness of how our world in the post-9/11 era - through a global recession, and dominated by technological advances and the internet - is interconnected.
Global Interdependence is an authoritative and comprehensive exploration of the networks and actors that impact global economy, policies, relations and events. It shows how they contribute to creating our future and, simultaneously, our history. Its succinct academic analysis is well-structured and well-framed.
The authors posit some predictions as to what a shared future will look like: the growing strength of Asian players while the West maintains a leading role; the need for co-operation to "safeguard peace, promote prosperity, and conserve the natural environment".
Ultimately, however, it seems hard to make predictions about an unpredictable world: as the world grows ever more connected, its challenges also increase. In the words of George Bernard Shaw: "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." So while increased global communication and interdependence exist, we must become increasingly aware and sensitive to the world around us and those we share it with.


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LIFE

Book review: Global Interdependence, edited by Akira Iriye

Pulling down the Berlin wall in 1989. Global Interdependence sees a world that is growing ever more connected as barriers come down. Photo: AP

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Historical events are not necessarily sequential; they overlap and interconnect. History is constantly evolving, and the world is changing at an unprecedented rate - be it environmental, social, physical, political or technological.
