The Ideas That Conquered The World: Peace, Democracy, And Free Markets In The Twenty-first Century

by Michael Mandelbaum

Overview

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, three ideas dominate the world: peace as the preferred basis for relations between and among different countries, democracy as the optimal way to organize political life, and free markets as the indispensable vehicle for the creation of wealth. While not practiced everywhere, these ideas have—for the first time in history—no serious rivals. And although the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were terrible and traumatic, they did not "change everything," as so many commentators have asserted. Instead, these events served to illuminate even more brightly the world that emerged from the end of the Cold War.

In The Ideas That Conquered the World, Michael Mandelbaum describes the uneven spread (over the past two centuries) of peace, democracy, and free markets from the wealthy and powerful countries of the world's core, where they originated, to the weaker and poorer countries of its periphery. And he assesses the prospects for these ideas in the years to come, giving particular attention to the United States, which bears the greatest responsibility for protecting and promoting them, and to Russia, China, and the Middle East, in which they are not well established and where their fate will affect the rest of the world.

Drawing on history, politics, and economics, this incisive book provides a clear and original guide to the main trends of the twenty-first century, from globalization to terrorism, through the perspective of one of our era's most provocative thinkers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781586482060
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	01/08/2004
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy; Director of the American Foreign Policy Program at Johns Hopkins, SAIS. He is a former faculty member at Harvard University, Columbia University and the U.S. Naval Academy; his Ph.D. in political science came from Harvard University.

What People are Saying About This

Leslie H. Gelb

The Ideas that Conquered the World is the most important work thus far on what's new and what's old about the post-Cold War world, about the forces and ideas that will do battle in the future, and it is beautifully written. It shows that history continues with interesting new wrinkles—worrisome and exciting.
—Leslie H. Gelb, President, Council on Foreign Relations

publisher

The Ideas that Conquered the World is the most important work thus far on what's new and what's old about the post-Cold War world, about the forces and ideas that will do battle in the future, and it is beautifully written. It shows that history continues with interesting new wrinkles—worrisome and exciting.
—Leslie H. Gelb, President, Council on Foreign Relations

Interviews

Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets: Michael Mandelbaum on The Ideas That Conquered the World
In the wake of the Cold War, peace, democracy, and free markets were not universal. They were, instead, hegemonic. The term "hegemony" comes originally from ancient Greece. There it referred to the fact of preponderance and the exercise of leadership or predominant influence by one Greek city-state, usually within the context of a political confederacy. The hegemon towered above its allies. Similarly, these three great Western ideas tower over the post–Cold War world, providing the most widely adopted formulas for organizing the world's military relations, politics, and economics.

Not all countries accepted each of the three ideas, or were able to put them into practice. But there were no viable alternative principles. Asked where in Paris he would most like to live, a French architect is said to have picked the Eiffel Tower on the grounds that this was the only place from which he would not have to look at it. Peace, democracy, and free markets -- the ideas that conquered the world -- are the Eiffel Tower of the 21st century.

As with the Eiffel Tower, the world order of the 21st century does not please everyone. Its opponents are noisy, determined, and sometimes violent. Their ranks include the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as the thousands who gathered to protest the international economic policies of the wealthy countries at the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in December 1999 and the meeting of the Group of Eight -- the wealthy industrial democracies plus Russia -- at Genoa in July 2001.

While both groups detest the Western ideas and practices that dominate the world of the 21st century, and both have sought to destroy them, neither has any real hope of success, and neither offers anything to put in place of what they are assaulting.

The international system at the beginning of the 21st century is therefore like a fixed-price menu from which a diner can accept or reject different items. He or she can choose to skip the hors d'oeuvre, or the main course, or the dessert -- or to go hungry altogether. The governments of Burma, Cuba, Iraq, and North Korea have in fact rejected these three Western ideas, and their people have in fact gone hungry. But there is no other menu, no other equally appetizing series of political and economic choices from which to order.

Editorial Reviews

An important and compelling new book.

Thomas L. Friedman

The Ideas that Conquered the World is the most important work thus far on what's new and what's old about the post-Cold War world, about the forces and ideas that will do battle in the future, and it is beautifully written. It shows that history continues with interesting new wrinkles—worrisome and exciting.

Leslie H. Gelb

This is a timely and relevant analysis. Mandelbaum speaks powerfully and insightfully to our vexing and manifold challenges.

Charlotte Observer

A thoughtful and powerful...analysis of the triumphant and ongoing impact of the ideas of peace, democracy and free markets.

Richard Reeves

Mandelbaum captures with considerable scholarship and clarity the general underpinnings of current international relations and the possibilities for the future.

an excellent historical understanding of the evolution of the Western liberal ideas of free trade, democracy, and peace.

Parameters

Continuing in the same tradition as Francis Fukuyama's , political science professor (and senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations) Mandelbaum continues the argument that capitalism and democracy are inextricably linked and that so-called "free markets" have emerged as indisputably triumphant in the world of contesting political and economic ideas. In exploring the political affairs of the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Russia, and China, he advances two propositions about liberal democracies that may seem surprising to observers of the current international scene: that democracies tend to conduct peaceful foreign affairs and that free markets naturally lead to democracy. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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