The Liberal Moment:
Modernity, Security, and the Making
of Postwar International Order

Robert Latham

New York

Columbia University Press

1997

Bibliographical data

Book Summary and Reviews

To Dalia Kandiyoti, who both inspired and transformed

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. "A Certain Overlordship": Locating the International Liberal Context

   • Liberal Modernity
   • The Domain Analytic
   • The Domains of Liberal Modernity
   • International Liberal Order
   • Conclusion

2. "Stupendous Forces Are Loose"

   • The Liberal Moment
   • War-Making as Liberal Order-Making
   • Agency and Liberal Order
   • Hegemony
   • The External State
   • Interests, Strategic Action, and Liberal Order
   • Security and Militarization
   • Structuring the Argument
   • Neorealism and the Liberal Moment
   • Diplomatic History and International Liberal Order

3. An Enemy Is Better than a Friend

   • Constructing a Liberal Order
   • The Soviet Union and the Making of Order
   • The Liberal Uniaxis
   • Making an Order Is Making an Other
   • The Soviet Threat
   • Liberal Order and the Rise of the Cold War
   • Cold War Alternatives
   • Conclusion: The Trope of Failure

4. "The Requirements of Freedom": Containment, Integration, and Western Militarization

   • Economic Security as the Liberal Strategic Weapon of Choice
   • Economic Security and the Emergence of an American-Military Strategic System
   • Containment as an International Liberal Political Form
   • Economic Security, Integration, and the Liberal State
   • Strategy and the Making of the European Recovery Program
   • The Transformation of Containment in Western Europe and the Militarization of U.S.-European Relations
   • The Soviet Threat and the Militarization of the West
   • Integration and Militarization in Western Europe
   • Conclusions

5. Conclusion

   • Liberal Identities, Liberal Dilemmas
   • Order, Fear, and Complexity
   • A Foreign Policy of the Local

References