Introduction

This chapter opens by summing up the findings from Chapters 2 to 6 about significant turning points across the five sectors, and how these do or do not line up in time. These are shown in Table 7.1 below. It then considers these findings in the light of the scheme set up in Chapter 1 for grouping turning-point dates into clusters, and ranking these as primary, secondary or tertiary benchmark dates. This new timeline is shown in Table 7.2.

The outcome of this exercise provides a multi-sectoral framing for periodizing Global International Relations that takes into account the perspectives of both the West and the Global South, without privileging either. This framing transcends the orthodox war-centrism in two ways. First, it puts great power wars firmly into a context that takes into account transformations across all five sectors. Second, it gives weight to the global military balance between core and periphery, and not just to great power wars. The proposed new timelines for modernity focus on the relationship between core and periphery as the main defining feature of international relations, and world order more widely, during the past two centuries.

Clustering turning points across sectors

The analysis in Chapters 2 to 6 revealed seven candidates for significant clustering of turning points within and across the five sectors. Of these seven, the first six are rooted in historical assessments, and the seventh is a speculation based on emerging trends into the rest of the 2020s and the 2030s. These are summed up in Table 7.1.