This book is an attempt to make sense of a changing world around us. Stationary state and evolution are interrelated variables of historical process. At times, however, evolution speeds up, ceases to be gradual and turns into a revolution (social, technological or scientific). The global economic crisis of 2007–2009, also referred to as “The Great Recession”, has brought the need for change into foreground.

The global world order is amid sweeping changes. A single generation saw a bipolar world of the Cold War fall apart and the illusions and excesses of a unipolar world shatter. Now, according to one view, we are witnessing the emergence of a hierarchical polycentricity or, in another view, a world without poles or a dominant model. Are these views relevant? A new multi-factor tandem of the USA and China is arising. Will their relations stabilize or destabilize global development?