If one looks at the recent wave of geopolitical debate, it becomes clear, why there is such an exuberant interest in "world orders". Following an interdisciplinary perspective and distinguished by disambiguation, historicisation, typological differentiation and by empirical grounding, the recent research is overrunning vehemently the platitudes and stereotypes which characterises the first "discovery" of a new world order through the media. The chapters in this edited volume address research topics which pose a challenge to the mainstream of academic debate in their respective disciplines. In the first part of this volume "World order knowledge" the authors and editors are dealing with forms of mental mapping and the construction of knowledge in the production of world order. In the second part of this volume "World order practice" they are introducing different perspectives on the practice of constructing or being part of a particular world order which come from the Global South, the Southern hemisphere, the Global South within or the East. This volume goes back to the 6th summer school of the Graduate Centre Humanities and Social Sciences of the Research Academy Leipzig which was held in September 2008 at the University of Leipzig.