Distant Proximities: Dynamics Beyond Globalization. By James N. Rosenau. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. 448p. $65.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

In this book, James N. Rosenau draws together in a helpful, systematic way much of his thinking on global governance and globalization from the past decade. As with other aspects of his work, it is conceptually creative, detailed, and normative. He believes that political science needs to move beyond conceptual frameworks where the nation-state provides the central focus. He justifies this position by arguing that the “the best way to grasp world affairs today requires viewing them as an endless series of distant proximities in which the forces pressing for greater globalization and those inducing greater localization interactively play themselves out” (p. 2). Putting these “distant proximities” at the center of our analysis will challenge distinctions like those between domestic and foreign affairs or comparative politics and international relations.