Quietly, as if by stealth, Robert W. Cox's stature as an international relations theorist has grown over the last two decades until it seems reasonable to suggest that he has become a dominant figure in the field, whose influence is magnified by a growing cadre of loyal former students and close associates. Cox, as he disarmingly admits, is almost impossible to categorize as realist, liberal, constructivist, or Marxist, although he has drawn insights from a wide variety of intellectual sources. In his own words, “I do not shy away from the word ‘eclectic’” (p. 29), and that is as close as we can responsibly come to a comprehensive label.

But there is more to this problem of locating Cox's approach, and especially his engagement with the politics of change that is so characteristic of his work. On the one side, Cox, in responding to critics, says that “[t]he most pertinent criticism is that I have lacked a coherent vision of what I am for” (p. 37), and he goes on to explain that his two careers as an international civil servant with the International Labor Organization and then as an academician may have had the double effect of removing him “from a sense of primary identity with nation or class” while allowing him to “hone the critical faculty and confirm a feeling of distance from active political and social engagement” (p. 37). And in the same passage, “I am an observer, not a representative” (p. 37). But on the other side is a critical voice that seems to have chosen sides in the great unfolding global drama that commands major attention at the present time. Again Cox's own words are clarifying: “I am not content merely to analyse the historical process. I also want to put that analysis to the service of historical change” (p. 37). And so he does. Just as the intellectual progeny of Leo Strauss, we are learning these days, veer to the far right of the political spectrum, those who follow Cox's lead are to be consistently found on the left. Such a generalization is confirmed by scanning the contributors to a volume put together a few years ago to honor Cox at the time of his retirement from York University (Innovation and Transformation in International Studies, Stephen Gill and James Mittelman, eds., 1997). It is a mark of Cox's humility (and importance) that an initial long chapter authored by Michael Schechter summarizes the principal criticisms of Cox's academic output, and is followed by a chapter of explanations written by Cox that responds meekly and usefully, clarifying intentions, refraining from argument and debate.

The Political Economy of a Plural World, which consists of a series of essays written over the last decade or so together with some previously unpublished material, provides a clear, stimulating, and surprisingly coherent expression of Cox's understanding of the current world situation. Although the concerns are shaped by the realities of the 1990s, which were mainly economistic, explaining the focus on globalization, Cox also incorporates the post–September 11 context. What is most impressive about this line of interpretation is the degree to which Cox's emphasis on what he calls the “global cleavage” has shifted from the modernist rivalry among leading sovereign states to a struggle between different classes of people, pitting the beneficiaries of globalization agains those who are marginalized and excluded, and who, for a range of reasons, reject the path of globalization (p. xix). The pro-globalization elites accept as inevitable, and desirable, the emergence of a single world civilization that is capital-driven and consumerist. Their civil society adversaries of a homogenized world order seek what Cox calls “an alternative order” with the following two main features: a project of a revitalized civil society operating on a transnational basis and a commitment to “a plural world” made up of several civilizations interacting on the basis of mutual respect and reflecting “the diversity of material conditions, historical experience, mentalities and aspirations that prevail among the world's peoples” (p. xxi). The historical drama being played out is, according to Cox, a dialectical encounter between these two visions of the future.

What sets Cox apart among international relations theorists is the subtlety, sweep, erudition, and historical and philosophical depth of his commentaries and conceptualization of world affairs. Much of the writing is informed by a deep appreciation of the macrohistorical writings of Giambattista Vico, Oswald Spengler, and Arnold J. Toynbee, first of all to convey a longer view of international trends and as a principled criticism of Western Enlightenment views of history as linear, and as a vehicle of progress. Cox is also conversant with the writings of Marx and Gramsci, and takes from the latter the importance of hegemonic ideas. But he has read carefully, also, the great Arabic thinker Ibn Khaldun, and is noticeably influenced by such Europeans as Benedetto Croce, Fernand Braudel, R. G. Collingwood, Karl Polanyi, and Mikhail Bakhtin. Such a range of sources exhibits Cox's self-proclaimed historicism. But it is also worth noticing the dogs that do not bark. Cox virtually ignores the contemporary authors, with the exception of his civilizational sparring partner, Samuel Huntington. There is no reference in text or extensive bibliography to such notables in the profession as Joseph Nye, Robert Jervis, Stanley Hoffmann, Robert Keohane, and Robert Gilpin. The only mainstream IR thinker who seems important to Cox is E. H. Carr, who interestingly was also an eccentric, despite being claimed as the godfather of political realism. Cox looks especially to Carr in his effort to describe the manner in which power and morality evolve over time, do not remain frozen, and accompany phases of declining and ascending civilizational experiences.

This series of learned and fascinating essays can be read as a search for an understanding of how the future may not be shaped by what Cox concedes is “[t]he dominant vision of Empire” (p. 192), that is, the protagonist or “one-civilization vision” (p. 191). The contrary “vision of a plural world is not likely to be advanced by catastrophic events or victory of arms,” but only through a worldwide “strengthening of civil society and citizen participation,” especially in “the heartland of the Empire” (p. 192). In the end, Cox does seem to place his hope in the dynamics of democratization, not in liberal formats of parties and elections, but through activism and popular movements transforming the climate of expectations beyond what now seems plausible, and resting on civilizational pluralism and normative commitments to a sustainable and equitable world economy that enhances the voice and impact of the peoples of the world. It is a coded message that we in America need to hear, and never more than now.