Please join the Mershon Center and the Department of Political Science for a special Mershon Monday featuring Alexander Wendt and his new book The Last Humans: UFOs, Global Security, and the Threat to State Sovereignty (Oxford University Press, 2026). Wendt is the Ralph D. Mershon Professor of International Security.
Former Mershon Director Dorothy Noyes (Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Studies) will moderate a panel of faculty that includes Michael Neblo (Professor of Political Science), Amanda Robinson (Professor of Political Science), and Thomas Wood (Associate Professor of Political Science). Lunch will be provided.
In The Last Humans, Wendt explores a future scenario in which global authorities conclude--and disclose--that Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) are flown by extraterrestrials (ETs), and what this discovery would mean for both human security and the international state system. Wendt contends that this situation would indeed be a national security threat, but not of the traditional, military kind. The realization that states are impotent in the face of vastly superior ET power would be an ontological shock to modern civilization, given the anthropocentric assumption that "We Are Alone." Taking UAP and potential ETs seriously would call into question the legitimacy of the modern state, the social contract that underlies it, and the global civilization built around it.
"Rarely does a book in International Relations systematically investigate one of the most existential questions we could ask; are we alone in the world? By daring to break the UFO Taboo, Alexander Wendt, a world-renowned international relations theorist, examines the profound security consequences that the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence could have for those living on planet Earth. The Last Humans has the potential to be one of the most influential books written in the early twenty-first century."
-Brian C. Schmidt, Professor of Political Science, Carleton University
