Events

Prof Gilbert Achcar presents new book The New Cold War, joined by Dr Yuliya Yurchenko (PEGFA)

27th Apr 2023 5pm - 7pm

Campus

The Institute for Political Economy, Governance, Finance, and Accountability invites you to the book launch of Professor Gilbert Achcar's The New Cold War: The United States, Russia and China, from Kosovo to Ukraine (Westbourne Press, 2023)

When: 27 April 2023, 5pm

Where: QA080, University of Greenwich, Queen Anne building.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, warnings about a ‘new Cold War’ proliferated. In fact, argues Gilbert Achcar in this timely new study, the Cold War has been ongoing since the turn of the century, as he himself had already observed by then. Racing to solidify its position in the 1990s as the sole remaining superpower, the US alienated Russia and China, pushing them closer and rebooting the ‘old’ Cold War with disastrous implications.

Vladimir Putin’s consequent rise and imperialist reinvention, along with Xi Jinping’s own ascendancy and increasingly autocratic tendencies, have culminated, respectively, in the murderous invasion of Ukraine and mounting tensions over Taiwan and trade. Was all this inevitable? Will these three powers’ permanent readiness to war write the story of the twenty-first century? What comes after Ukraine? What might the contours of a more peaceful world look like?

These questions and many others are addressed in this ‘indispensable guide to the current global disorder and its ominous portent’ (Noam Chomsky), an ‘essential book’ that ‘no one who hopes to move beyond complacent rhetoric and slogans can afford to miss’ (Samuel Moyn, Yale University).

Professor Achcar will be joined by Yuliya Yurchenko from PEGFA.

Gilbert Achcar is Professor of Development Studies and International Relations. He joined SOAS, University of London, in 2007 after having taught or researched in Beirut, Paris and Berlin. He is the author of several books, including The Clash of Barbarisms: The Making of the New World Disorder (2002, 2006), Perilous Power: The Middle East and US Foreign Policy (with Noam Chomsky, 2007, 2008), The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (2010, 2011) and The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (2013, 2022).

Yuliya Yurchenko is a Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at the Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability Insitute (PEGFA) at the University of Greewncih, UK. She is the Vice-Chair of the Critical Political Economy Research Network Board (CPERN), Chair for Critical European Studies Workshop/CPERN, Editor for Capital and Class, and Global Political Economy. She is the author of (2018) Ukraine and The Empire of Capital: from marketisation to armed conflict. Pluto Press: London; a member of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (UK), ENSU campaign, and the Social Movement political organisation, Ukraine.