We live in a world increasingly shaped by the forces of globalization or interdependence as all the world's countries and individuals, in varying degrees and ways, are drawn into an ever more complex economic, political, technological, ethical, communications, transportation, and cultural web....

International politics began with the emergence of the first organized states thousands of years ago. Global politics is more recent--it appeared about five centuries ago when the European powers began to mesh the world's far corners together through conquest and trade. Today we live on a planet...