![]() ![]() And states outside Europe did not adhere to Westphalian principles. ![]() Before then, they reason, politics did not happen on a global scale. ![]() When searching for the history relevant to today’s world events, they rarely look beyond the European world order constructed after 1500. This rather Eurocentric view of the past still shapes how most international relations scholars see the world. Thanks to this settlement, states for the first time formally agreed to respect their mutual sovereignty over demarcated territories, laying the groundwork for the abiding “Westphalian order” of a world divided into sovereign nation-states. ![]() That was the moment international relations truly began, the argument runs. So, too, did the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, two treaties signed by feuding European powers that ended a series of bloody wars. In their view, the transformations unleashed by European colonialism made the world what it is today. How old is the modern world? Scholars of international relations tend to date the beginning of their field of study to around 500 years ago, when a handful of states in western Europe began to establish colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. ![]()
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