Overview
We live in an explosive world. Trump is blowing up political order. Xi Jinping is scrambling the economy. And Putin is redrawing the map of Europe. At a time when every crisis bleeds into the next — from pandemics and wars to climate shocks and AI revolutions — the old rules of global order are collapsing. Mark Leonard reveals how geopolitics is being rewritten in an age of ""Un-Order,"" where no one agrees on the rules, and even the concept of order itself is up for debate. Drawing on years of conversations with leaders and thinkers from Beijing to Washington, Leonard argues that we are witnessing a new divide in international politics between the grand ""architects"" who try to build a stable global system and the nimble ""artisans"" who adapt, improvise, and survive amidst disruption. China, he shows, has embraced the ""artisan's"" mindset while Europe and the West cling to the fading certainties of the ""architects"". Part analysis, part manifesto, Surviving Chaos offers a bold new framework for understanding power in the twenty-first century — and a call for leaders to stop defending yesterday's world and start learning how to thrive in tomorrow's.
Reviews
""Mark Leonard's writing always bristles with ideas and insight. His new book is both sweeping and granular, refreshing and realistic. Surviving chaos starts with understanding it, and Mark's book helps us do that."" David Miliband ""There are often two types of foreign policy pundits: those grounded in academic theory and those in the diplomatic world of practice. Mark Leonard is one of those rare breeds that is able to do both. Surviving Chaos is yet another one of his brilliant books that proves the case and point. He is both an 'architect' and an 'artisan' of foreign policy able to explain the complexity of change in an understandable manner. You do not have to be an expert of foreign affairs to understand that the world order, balance and dynamics are changing. In this chaotic world Leonard gives all of us a lucid analysis of what is going on, and clear policy recommendations on what we should do. Recommended reading for both the ivory tower and the engine room."" Alexander Stubb, President of Finland
Author Information
Mark Leonard is Co-Founder and Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think–tank. He hosts the weekly podcast Mark Leonards's World in 30 Minutes and writes a syndicated column on global affairs for Project Syndicate. Mark has spent time in Washington, D.C. as Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the US Library of Congress, and in Beijing as a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences. He has authored several books: Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century (2005) which was translated into 19 languages, What Does China Think? (2008) which was translated into 15 languages and The Age of Unpeace (2021). Mark has advised a number of European governments and is a member of the Global Advisory Council of the European Investment Bank, UK Soft Power Council and UK Foreign Secretary's External Foreign Policy Board.
