The Great Experiment The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation

by Talbott, Strobe

• ISBN13: 9780743294096
• ISBN10: 0743294092
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-17
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

This is the saga of how the most ambitious of big ideas-that a world made up of many nations can govern itself peacefully-has played out over the millennia. Humankind's "Great Experiment" goes back to the most ancient of days-to the Garden of Eden-and into the present, with an eye to the future. This dramatic narrative of breathtaking scope and riveting focus puts the "story" back into history. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Strobe Talbott, the president of the Brookings Institution, was the founding director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and Deputy Secretary of State from 1994 to 2001. Former foreign affairs columnist and Washington bureau chief for Time, Talbott has written for The New York Times, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and The New Yorker.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Gathering of Tribes	p. 1
The Imperial Millennia
Caravans at Rest	p. 15
A Light Unto the Nations	p. 26
The Ecumenical State	p. 41
The Poet and "The Prince"	p. 66
Perpetual War and "Perpetual Peace"	p. 86
Blood and Leather	p. 104
The American Centuries
Monsters to Destroy	p. 125
Empty Chairs	p. 148
The Master Builder	p. 174
A Trusteeship of the Powerful	p. 203
An End and a Beginning	p. 237
The Unipolar Decades
The New World Order	p. 255
Seizing the Day	p. 280
Hard Power	p. 299
A Theory of the Case	p. 324
Going it Alone	p. 347
A Consequential Aberration	p. 370
Conclusion: Yes, We Must	p. 393
Acknowledgments	p. 411
Illustration Credits	p. 414
Notes	p. 415
Index	p. 463
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