India, Aug. 30 -- Atimely tome by Amitav Acharya, who teaches global affairs at American University, Washington, DC, The Once and Future World Order draws on historical examples to convey a sense of cautious optimism, not about a peaceful world but about a more inclusive one. The introduction is a lucidly written essay that captures the inegalitarian world historically created by the myths of Western supremacy. He laments that the West itself has contributed to the instability, injustice and disorder we see around us today. There is deep irony in his suggestion that the decline of the West, in fact, is likely to ease some of these challenges. The indictment here is that the Western-dominated order that has existed for some centuries, curated by domination, subjugation and exploitation by a colonial concert, was never as benign as made out by many scholars and historians. Even the formal global order represented by the treaty-based UN system founded in 1945 is hardly egalitarian even though the UN Charter advocates equality. The author points out a dark truth about the Versailles Conference. When negotiations were underway to establish the League of Nations, US President Woodrow Wilson, apparently with the support of Britain and Australia, resisted the insertion of a "racial equality" clause proposed by Japan. This, even as he was promoting democracy and self-determination around the world. The book explores the concept of World Order and the juxtaposition of Order and Chaos. The World Order, as Acharya puts it, was never monolithic in past ages. There were many Orders in the ancient and Old World, whether seen through timelines or geographies. Acharya takes the reader on an informative and fact-filled journey across the Sumerian, Greek and Roman, as well as Indian, Chinese, Islamic, Meso-American and South American civilisations. Many of these had drawn upon the wisdom and knowledge of their historical predecessors or contemporaries to take the form they did. Acharya sees the World Order that once was as a shared creation. Earlier civilisations all contributed to the development of the now globally accepted social, political, economic and cultural systems. The author feels we tend to erroneously view principles of governance, democratic institutions and rule of law as gifts of Western civilisation whereas these often originated, and were finessed through practice, in older civilisations. In the chapter Rise of the West, the author challenges historian Niall Ferguson's denial of imperialism and takes apart his theory of the "six killer apps" that facilitated Europe's rise. The author argues that these factors, ie, competition, science, property rights, medicine, consumer society and work ethic, require closer scrutiny, because these features of Western domination, likewise, had their provenance in older civilisations. Today, the World Order is severely challenged. The United Nations represents the only truly global order that the world has known. Yet, it has failed to reform and accommodate the significant changes in the balance of power since 1945. Continued Western domination has perpetuated exceptionalism. Vested interests of the privileged permanent members of the UN Security Council have prevented any meaningful reforms such as expansion of the permanent membership of the UNSC. The chapter on India is of great interest. As Acharya observes, out of ancient India came two contrasting pathways to organising a World Order. The first was through ruthless warfare and imperialism. This was the path taken by Ashoka before the Kalinga war, and the other, through morality, benevolent rule and peaceful accommodation of adversaries, as evident in Ashoka's post-Kalinga ahimsa philosophy drawn from Buddhism. This also resonates with the teachings of Mahavira and Mahatma Gandhi. Acharya's book provides a stimulating alternative narrative to the standard discourse about modern civilisation having evolved in the West. What is striking, of course, is how much control the West still has over the writing and interpretation of the history of the world. The author succinctly points out that the 20th century Geneva Conventions outlining the principles governing hostilities actually draw, almost verbatim, from the code outlined in Manusmriti two thousand years ago in India. In the same vein, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam from the Maha Upanishad has preceded the modern notion of a global comity of nations by nearly three millennia. The American world order, which is conflated with the liberal international order, is slowly giving way to new impulses. The Future Order, Acharya avers, will be multi-civilisational. He calls it "a global multiplex" in which an eclectic mix of nations, Big Tech and business, non-governmental groups, even individuals, will have agency in shaping events and outcomes. The problem with the existing order is that it has been given a treaty basis, which enables perpetuation of privilege in the permanent membership club that is the UN Security Council, and renders it impervious to external calls for change. At the Cairo (1943) and Potsdam (1945) Conferences, "the Rest", as Acharya labels them, were granted the UN Charter but had to pay a price for it by accepting permanent membership for some in the UNSC, as custodians of the world order in perpetuity. One wonders if the author is not over-optimistic in conjuring a vision of a more inclusive world to come. Without a level playing field today, especially in decision- making at the UN and access to deep tech, data and artificial intelligence, Acharya's Future Order, like the current one, may at best be oligopolistic and, at worst, dyadic. In fact, there will likely be not one but two future orders: the "Normative Order" will continue to be defined by the static UN and attendant structures, and the "Empirical Order", as characterised by the rise and ebb of certain powers, will gain potency. It is in this uncertain space that India, as one of the oldest and the longest "living civilisation", is striving to emerge as a credible power, though not without drawing the ire of privileged powers....