Envisioning Eastern Hegemony

18 May 2017

Considering the last couple centuries of history, it is clear that Western countries have reigned dominant over the rest of the world—whether through colonialism, imperialism, economic power, or military might.

This book review in The New York Review of Books covers some of the reasons for the balance of global power may be shifting to the East. The author of the article ultimately concludes that the East is currently far from supplanting the West. But what would a world run by Eastern values even look like? Would the world look meaningfully different if the East did run things around here, or would there just be different groups of people running roughly similarly structured institutions? What sense can even be made of the distinction between East and West?

While these questions do not appear to be discussed in the article, they were what I would've liked to press the author on.

The full link to the article:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/05/11/easternization-can-china-replace-the-west/