« New World order » expression origin
Executive summary
The phrase "New World Order" has layered origins: it appears in 19th‑century political writing, was adopted and reframed by early 20th‑century statesmen and thinkers, and was popularized in different senses by figures such as H. G. Wells and President George H.W. Bush—while also being repurposed into a modern conspiracy narrative tied to older anti‑elite and secret‑society tropes [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Any account must distinguish the term’s diplomatic and intellectual lineage from the separate conspiracy stream that grafted dark, often antisemitic, meanings onto it [2] [5].
1. Earliest traces: an idea, not a single coinage
The language of a remade international order stretches back well before the 20th century; authors argue the labelling of a changing "world order" appears in 19th‑century political texts and discussions about revolution and international systems, with some scholars pointing to usages that prefigure the phrase rather than a single moment of invention [1] [6].
2. H. G. Wells and the interwar intellectual reframing
British writer and futurist H. G. Wells adopted and redefined "new world order" in the 1940s as part of a program for global planning and technocratic governance—his work framed the term as a synonym for a planned, international regime and influenced progressive and world‑federalist discourses of the era [2] [3] [6].
3. Statesmen and the phrase in diplomatic rhetoric
Statesmen used the idea of a transformed international system after major conflicts: Woodrow Wilson and other 20th‑century leaders spoke of a "new international order" in postwar visions of collective security and institutions, a lineage that connects the phrase to official diplomacy as much as to literary futurism [6] [2] [7].
4. The 1990 political tipping point: George H.W. Bush and mass attention
The phrase entered broad contemporary awareness when U.S. President George H.W. Bush invoked it in 1990 to describe a hoped‑for post–Cold War arrangement of multilateralism and rules‑based governance; that moment is widely credited with popularizing the term's geopolitical sense in late 20th‑century public discourse [3] [4].
5. From diplomatic slogan to conspiracy staple
Separate from its diplomatic and intellectual uses, "New World Order" was grafted onto a conspiracy ecosystem that combined 18th‑ and 19th‑century fears about secret societies, Cold War and post‑Cold War anti‑elite narratives, televangelist warnings (notably Pat Robertson) and fringe literature—this strand reframed the phrase as evidence of a hidden cabal seeking global domination and absorbed older antisemitic and anti‑Masonic motifs [2] [5] [6].
6. The modern contest: contested meanings and political utility
Today the phrase serves competing agendas: policy elites may use it analytically to describe structural shifts in international order, while activists, commentators and conspiracy movements employ it either critically or alarmistically to allege elite plots; academic and policy sources warn that the conspiracy framing has concrete harms, including inciting violence and recycling prejudices [7] [8] [5] [2].
7. What the records do—and do not—show
The reporting assembled demonstrates that "New World Order" is not the invention of a single person or faction but a phrase with multiple lines of descent: from political and intellectual discourse through prominent 20th‑century usages to late‑20th‑century popularization and conspiratorial appropriation [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. The sources do not support a singular, conspiratorial origin story or a canonical first utterance; they instead document a shifting semantic history that makes the term useful to very different storytellers [2] [5].