Since the end of the Cold War, the world has not become clearer or more peaceful. The expansion and crisis of the EU, September 11, 2001, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the global financial crisis, the Arab Spring - these are just a few topics of the concluding volume of Heinrich August Winkler's history of the West, which can already be considered a classic work of historiography. Today, the transatlantic West faces challenges from highly diverse forces: Islamist fundamentalism and terrorism, a neo-imperial Russian great power policy, the rise of the People's Republic of China as a world power, and the growing influence of global actors like India and Brazil. However, obituaries for the West are premature: The appeal of its normative project, the ideas of human rights, and the rule of law remains strong.