Theory of World Security

Theory of World Security
Series: Cambridge Studies in International Relations (No. 105)
Ken Booth
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Paperback
(ISBN-13: 9780521543170)
Also available in Hardback
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What is real? What can we know? How might we act? This book sets out to answer these fundamental philosophical questions in a radical and original theory of security for our times. Arguing that the concept of security in world politics has long been imprisoned by conservative thinking, Ken Booth explores security as a precious instrumental value which gives individuals and groups the opportunity to pursue the invention of humanity rather than live determined and diminished lives. Booth suggests that human society globally is facing a set of converging historical crises. He looks to critical social theory and radical international theory to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding the historical challenges facing global business-as- usual and for planning to reconstruct a more cosmopolitan future. Theory of World Security is a challenge both to well-established ways of thinking about security and alternative approaches within critical security studies.
• A major contribution by one of the world's leading authorities in security studies • A radical and original theory which forces us to reflect upon our own role in contemporary society • Accessible, well organised and comprehensive, making complex issues understandable
Contents
Part I. Context: 1. Present imperfect: future tense; 2. Thinking theory critically; Part II. Theory: 3. Security, emancipation, community; 4. Deepening, broadening, reconstructing; 5. Being, knowing, doing; 6. The world, the world; Part III. Dimensions: 7. Business-as- usual; 8. Who will own the twenty-first century?; Part IV. Futures: 9. The new twenty years' crisis; 10. A long hot century.
Reviews
‘This visionary book distils and presents a radical refocussing of the security studies field …Never before have I read a book so grounded in the realities of 21st century world politics and at the same time so visionary regarding the ways the key problems should be dealt with.’ Hayward R. Alker, University of Southern California and Watson Institute, Brown University
'At last the monograph is published which will allow students of international security to assess the critical thought of one of the foremost scholars in the field - hitherto available to us only in the bits and pieces of journals and book chapters. The breadth of learning, the characteristic liveliness and immediacy of Booth's writing, and the skill in marshalling facts and analysis into a forceful argument, make for a major challenge to the conventional approach to security studies.' Bill McSweeney, Trinity College Dublin
‘Ken Booth takes us way beyond critical security thinking. He takes us, his lucky readers, to innovative, fresh and downright energizing security thinking! Theory of World Security shows what good things can happen intellectually if one starts one's theorizing about security from the bottom up.’ Cynthia Enloe, author of Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link (2007)
‘After being for a generation an inspirational figure for the new discourse of Critical Security Studies, Ken Booth has now produced his own account of the field. Predictably, it does not always make for comfortable reading; Booth’s pessimism about the state we’re in disturbs as it is intended to - but this is not simply a threnody for a world gone wrong, it is also a call to action. This is a book that will be a key reference point for anyone who aspires to contribute to the discourse in the future. An exemplary piece of activist scholarship.’ Chris Brown, London School of Economics
‘If Nobel Prizes were given in international relations Ken Booth would deserve one for this extraordinary book. We have long awaited such a magisterial approach to world security, and here it is, at once learned and lively, as well as clearing the way toward an emancipatory future for world order thinking and practice.’ Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara