Reading the Newspaper
Two Years Later, a Thousand Years Ago By Robert Wright Among the ideas that seemed to collapse along with the twin towers two years ago was a view of globalization as a kind of manifest destiny. Unlike the 19th-century version of manifest destiny, this vision didn't involve expanding America's borders. Rather, America's values -- notably economic and political liberty -- would spread beyond those borders, covering the planet. And this time around America's mission didn't have the widely assumed blessing of God. But it had the next best thing: the force of history. Globalization was seen by some as a nearly inevitable climax of the human story -- destiny of a secular sort.	Globalization Goes to War By Robert J. Samuelson What may ultimately be said of a war with Iraq, assuming it occurs, is that it made the world safe for globalization--or that it proved the world unfit for globalization. Wars produce surprises, for good and ill. No one expected that World War I would doom the existing global economic system or, more optimistically, that World War II would herald history's greatest prosperity. The question now is whether a war in Iraq, even though much smaller, might also trigger momentous side effects.
Title: Essay: Imperial history? By Dominic Lieven   The current world order is the heir of European empire. Between the 16th and 20th centuries empire and globalisation were tightly entwined. Europeans turned the Americas and Australasia into new Europes and, above all, new Englands. That is the geopolitical basis for the current domination of the world by the English language and by political and economic ideologies which are mostly of British origin. Under empire a global economic system was created, initially often by force. Its rules were mostly made and enforced by Europeans, although many non-Europeans were co-opted into its networks to their own great profit. Throughout most of the world, non-European elites were converted in varying degrees to European ideologies and customs. Both empire and this first great wave of globalisation were mortally wounded in 1914.
Decline and fall... must empires always self-destruct? By Tristram Hunt  WHY ROME? Why, some 2,000 years after the Roman Empire embarked upon its decline and fall, do we remain bewitched by its ruin? From Russell Crowe's Gladiator to Niall Ferguson's histories to Washington thinktanks, the spectre of a crumbling Coliseum still haunts our popular and political culture. The story of the collapse of Rome speaks to something fundamental within the Western imagination.	THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK ByTryst Williams Schools should spend more time teaching children about the British Empire, the Government's education watchdog said last night. . . . . Over the past couple of generations, teaching about the British Empire has become mired in controversy. In particular, critics point to the legacy of brutal and bloody subjugation of native peoples in British colonies and of the role of slavery in buoying the wealth of the Empire. But Professor Chris Williams, a history lecturer at the University of Glamorgan, believes there is merit in teaching about the period - as long as it is taught well. Prof Williams, who has just edited A Companion to 19th Century Britain, said, 'There's nothing wrong with teaching more about the British Empire; as long as one has balance in one's handling of the history of the Empire then that's fine.' He explained there had been renewed interest in the subject recently, fuelled by the work of critical post-colonial thinkers such as Edward Said as well as TV programmes by controversial historian Niall Ferguson. '