This article argues that ‘global realities’ are crucially the product of the collective human mind. Through time, the structures of ideas that have made up the dominant theories about living globally have changed markedly. Today, human society faces a world-historical crisis resulting from the structures of the ideas that made us. We face a Great Reckoning. In face of this it is argued that global business-as-usual must be replaced by a different collective consciousness about living globally if human society is to rise successfully to the challenges of the next half century. To understand the global crisis, and develop the resources for radical change, a critical theory of world politics is proposed. It places the idea of ‘emancipatory realism’ at the core of praxis, and points to a specific role for specialists in international politics, namely, to contribute to the changes in collective thinking necessary to bring about progressive change in global realities.