The idea of creating a sustainable social order is as old as the history of mankind and has come to be perceived by all civilizations as their ultimate goal. These quests to establish order have sometimes remained at a city-state level, while at other times they have transcended geographical limits to transform into comprehensive and inclusive political orders. When it encompassed a number of civilizational basins, this comprehensive nature ultimately embraced the assertion of establishing a world order.

While their basic creeds, ideologies and tools may differ, their search for world order can be classified in terms of method and type of approach into three eras; antiquity/traditional, modernity and globality. An understanding of these eras’ intrinsically shared features as well as the elements of continuity between them is a prerequisite to being able to shed light on the problematics we face today with respect to the world order.

From this perspective in the first chapter of the book a background to the historical course of world order is provided under the headings of traditional, modern and global world orders.

This book intervenes into longstanding debates about Imperial Germany's peculiarity linked to its authoritarian traditions, the failure of liberalism, the domestic origins of its overseas imperialism, and its role in the outbreak of the First World War first sparked by the historian Fritz Fischer in the 1960s. It is also informed by debates about liberal imperialism in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, as well as discussions on the origins of Nazism. The introduction questions Fischer’s interpretation by drawing on recent literature that has revealed the many common features of Western liberalism and liberal imperialism. The book explores the global influences shaping German “World Policy” by analyzing the extensive travel, writings, and activity of the economists Henry Farnam, Ernst von Halle, Karl Helfferich, Hermann Schumacher, and Max Sering, all of whom were taught by or closely associated with the economist Gustav Schmoller. These men were unusual because of their extensive travel and experiences overseas, their later influences on the policies of Bernhard von Bülow and Alfred Tirpitz, as well as their strong impact on Germany wartime policy.

The epilogue takes up the story of the men followed in the book after the calamity ofWorld War II and the Holocaust, offering reflections on West Germany’s transformation into a peaceful democracy and its reintegration into the world economy enabled by the Bretton Woods System, the NATO alliance, and debt forgiveness. It concludes with observations about Fritz Fischer’s interpretation of the course of German history and the continued relevance of the German past for understanding the challenges of globalization in the twenty-first century.