The question of world order : Varieties of world order ; Legitimacy and power
1. Europe: the pluralistic international order : The uniqueness of the European order ; The Thirty Years' War: what is legitimacy? ; The peace of Westphalia ; The operation of the Westphalian system ; The French Revolution and its aftermath
2. The European balance-of-power system and its end : The Russian enigma ; The Congress of Vienna ; The premises of international order ; Metternich and Bismarck ; The dilemmas of the balance of power ; Legitimacy and power between the world wars ; The postwar European order ; The future of Europe
3. Islamism and the Middle East: a world in disorder : The Islamic world order ; The Ottoman Empire: the sick man of Europe ; The Westphalian system and the Islamic world ; Islamism: the revolutionary tide: two philosophical interpretations ; The Arab Spring and the Syrian cataclysm ; The Palestinian issue and international order ; Saudia Arabia ; The decline of the state?
4. The United States and Iran: approaches to order : The tradition of Iranian statecraft ; The Khomeini revolution ; Nuclear proliferation and Iran ; Vision and reality
5. The multiplicity of Asia : Asia and Europe: different concepts of balance of power ; Japan ; India ; What is an Asian regional order?
6. Toward an Asian order: confrontation or partnership? : Asia's international order and China ; China and world order ; A longer perspective
7. "Acting for all mankind": the United States and its concept of order : America on the world stage ; Theodore Roosevelt: America as a world power ; Woodrow Wilson: America as the world's conscience ; Franklin Roosevelt and the new world order
8. The United States: ambivalent superpower : The beginning of the Cold War ; Strategies of a Cold War order ; The Korean War ; Vietnam and the breakdown of the national consensus ; Richard Nixon and international order ; The beginning of renewal ; Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War ; The Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ; The purpose and the possible
9. Technology, equilibrium, and human consciousness : World order in the nuclear age ; The challenge of nuclear proliferation ; Cyber technology and world order ; The human factor ; Foreign policy in the digital era
Conclusion: World order in our time? : The evolution of international order ; Where do we go from here?