Ed. by A. D. Voskresensky. Moscow: Vostok-Zapad Publ., 2006, 688 p. I am pleased to present to my readers a new collective monograph on political processes in the Eastern countries. It has been a long time since I have come across optimistic assessments of the current international political situation and its prospects. I suspect that the expert community at all times was not inclined to make favorable assessments and forecasts. At the same time, the last 15 years - judging by real events - really give rise to serious thoughts, first of all, about whether the policy of modern leading states in the international arena is equipped with an adequate conceptual framework. First of all, we are talking about the actions of the "generalized West", based on a neo-evolutionist political concept that goes back to sociological theories of modernization. Evolutionist accents in international politics have become particularly intense due to the collapse of the bipolar global structure and the devaluation of the alternative (communist) universalist concept. In recent political philosophy, the ideologist of "universal history" was, of course, F. Fukuyama, who in 1992 wrote about "the instability of authoritarian forms of government and the complete absence of consistent theoretical alternatives to liberal democracy" [Fukuyama, 2004, p.123; F. Fukuyama's italics]. But here's what catches your attention. Both Fukuyama and his academic colleagues / rivals have significantly shifted their research focus in the last decade. Now, it seems to me that the focus of interest of Western sociologists / political scientists is on such problems as the reconstruction of Western society proper and the achievement of a certain level of identity by its members (P. Buchanan, S. Huntington, F. Fukuyama), differences and interactions within the "generalized West" (W. Hutton), opposition to inocivilizational challenges (S. Huntington)., effective organization of the world community (A. Etzioni). In the ... Read more