What if the “end of Western dominance” isn’t catastrophe, but rather a chance to build a fairer global system?

Spanning five millennia, from ancient Sumer and India to medieval caliphates and Eurasian empires, Acharya demonstrates that world order long predates the modern West. Humanitarian norms, economic interdependence, and rules of inter-state conduct emerged across civilizations, suggesting that order can endure, and even improve, as power diffuses beyond Washington and Brussels. Far from a prelude to disorder, the decline of Western primacy may open space for a more plural and equitable system in which non-Western nations gain voice, power, and prosperity.

As social unrest and great-power rivalry unsettle today’s landscape, this discussion reframes the future: why narratives of inevitable chaos are historically wrong, how non-Western traditions of order have been erased, and what cooperation in a truly multipolar world might look like.