Global Covenant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the Washington Consensus. By David Held. New York: Polity, 2004. 216p. $54.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.

David Held lays out a detailed design for an “alternative” global order to the one promoted by the United States. He vigorously rejects the approach to the world of George W. Bush and instead offers a social democratic agenda, which has three main parts: economic, political, and legal. For each part, Held provides both the overarching principles that ought to guide us and a considerable list of specific steps that should advance his design. Readers should not stop reading just because the list of values that Held beseeches us to pursue is as impressive as it is lofty: He calls on us to uphold the principles of equal moral worth, equal liberty, equal political status of human beings, legitimate political authority “on all levels,” and a “deeper” commitment to social justice, among other such values. He buttresses his agenda with a list of measures to be undertaken both in the short and in the longer run, most of which deserve careful attention. It is here that ultimately the rubber does not meet the road.