God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, by Walter Russell Mead. Quotes from Mead about the book at Dino or Powerline. Sample:
The conventional wisdom says that the history of the last 300 years is the story of the rise and fall of Europe. I think that is wrong. The main trend in world history has been the development and continuing growth of a global system of power, finance, culture, ideology and trade based first on the power of Britain and then on that of the United States. Since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Britain has only been defeated in one major great power war – the war of the American Revolution. To put that another way, since the seventeenth century, either Britain or the United States or both together have been on the winning side in every great power war in which they have participated.
God and Gold is a book about this Anglo-American world system. Why have the British and the Americans established the most powerful and influential international power system in the history of the world? What does history teach us about the dangers we now face from the conflicts in the Middle East and from other challenges of the 21st century such as the rise of Asia? Are the best days of Anglo-American power already behind us, or do we still have an important role to play in world history?
