A stunningly insightful account of the global political and economic system, sustained first by Britain and now by America, that has created the modern world.
The key to the two countries’ predominance, Mead argues, lies in the individualistic ideology inherent in the Anglo-American religion. Over the years Britain and America’s liberal democratic system has been repeatedly challeged—by Catholic Spain and Louis XIV, the Nazis, communists, and Al Qaeda—and for the most part, it has prevailed. But the current conflicts in the Middle East threaten to change that record unless we foster a deeper understanding of the conflicts between the liberal world system and its foes.
Customer Reviews
Change is what makes America great:
“Change” is why Great Britain and now the United States became the dominant economic, military and social leaders for the past century, writes Mead in this superb history.
It’s a valid lesson in this era of fundamentalist Christians, Moslems, Wall Street analysts, laissez fairists and other terrorists who assume they have discovered the perfect way of life, liberty, happiness and easy profits for all true believers. In brief, he doesn’t suggest imposing change for the sake of change; he emphasizes the ability to change as conditions change and because our knowledge grows over time.
The delightful element is Mead’s ability to use analogies, quotes and examples from sources as disparate as Lewis Carroll to John Milton to Thomas Cranmer and Reinhold Niebuhr and ranging from The Walrus and the Carpenter to Original Sin to Greed to the Invisible Hand and the Whig narrative. It’s a relevant romp through history based on the premise that even conservatives can change — even if slowly.
The writing is a delight, the history is masterful.
He succinctly rejects the neo-conservative follies who argue America is in moral, military, economic and spiritual decline; instead of the usual focus on guns, butter and Bibles. Mead argues America’s strength is its ability to handle change when necessary.
Such intangibles are the foundation of a great society. The ability to change and yet retain impeccable financial integrity is a remarkable duality. It’s why the bankers’ bailouts are vital; not to prop up bozos, but to retain the integrity of the financial system.
Now, for the quibbles of a quidnunc: As brilliant as Mead is in his analysis, he overlooks an equally relevant factor — the refusal to quit, to give up, to surrender.
“For three years, Hitler beat Britain and its allies everywhere he faced them . . .” Mead states, overlooking Hitler’s failures to win the Battle of Britain, or to successfully blockade Britain or demoralize the people by terror bombing. It was not Churchill who stood alone against Hitler; it was 60 million Brits who refused to be bullied.
This refusal to give up is the quality that defeated Napoleon, beat the British in the U.S. War of Independence and Americans in Vietnam. Many countries share it in military terms; but, the British and Americans have the same stubborn determination in most things — not just military — they set out to accomplish. The Panama Canal was built by determination as much as by skill, talent and intrigue.
The unique American quality is often a persistence in demanding “new and improved” change, plus giving freedom to dissenters who challenge anything, everything and everyone in society. Every intelligent person can recognize a need for change; but, two further qualities are essential — tolerating and even honouring those who advocate it, and the wisdom to know what, when and how to implement it.
All in all, a superb account of how we got to where we are today and what we need to maintain leadership.
Why Doesn’t The World Understand Us?:
[Note; this is an abridged version of my complete Review which appears on the Claremont Institute website, on July 17, 2008]
In his new book, ‘God and Gold’, foreign affairs expert Walter Russell Mead argues that modern world history can be understood as the global application of a system of economics, religion, and culture that has been unilaterally developed and directed by the English-speaking peoples. From the time of Oliver Cromwell to the present, the British and the Americans, either individually or together, have won every major war, and have established a commercial and military dominance that remains the foundation of the modern world. “It is perhaps bad manners to say so,” Mead acknowledges, “but that does not make it less true.”
Within this context, Mead addresses questions which he believes can help us better understand and handle the problems and dangers that confront America today. As he goes through his discussion of these questions, the strengths of the book include his authoritative mastery of historical, political, and economic facts, which he uses liberally to support his argument, and his ability to weave together cultural, religious, economic, and political strands of history into a fascinating, well-written, and coherent synthesis that explains a great deal. The weaknesses of the book include a sometimes-overbearing repetitiveness of key points, and in the end a rather unsatisfying response to the major contemporary criticisms of Anglo-American culture. Nonetheless, the book is a very worthwhile read, both for its historic sweep, and most importantly for Mead’s lucid and useful suggestions regarding the future of American foreign policy.
An insight and thought provoking theory about the United States:
Before I read this book, I often wondered why Americans, regardless of the war, always see ourselves as the good guys. This book explains that and also why and how, first Great Britain, then the United States became the dominant global power that it is today in the modern world.
I never realized how important capitalism was to the forming of not only the United States but also the modern world. This book also explains, in great detail, why are there has always been nations, i.e., the bad guys, that have opposed the spread of the ways of the West, like capitalism, liberal democracy, freedom of religion, and things like that.
I would highly recommended this book to anyone who wants to understand not only the effect of capitalism in the world history but also why capitalism transformed the world into the one that it is today.
An exploration of English and American history and it’s relation to modern world political order:
Walter Russell Mead takes a crack at the contention that has been right in the thick of international politics for the last two - three hundred years: the rise of Britain and United States to the ranks of preeminent economic and military superpowers with significant cultural and social influence around the globe. And he does an excellent job of exploring it.
Meade locates the source of English and American success and triumph in economy, military, politics and culture to the evolution of certain ideas over the long course of english history. These being: Liberalism, Captalism, Rationalism, and Religious pluralism. However, he goes further than that. He believes that dynamic interaction between these factors helped balanced each other and prevented a strong backlash against either one of them. In this, he traces the beginnings of the success of Anglo-American countries.
However, this is not a history book. He does not dwell deeply into the history, his interest lies in exploring how this history created a Maritime Order where first the British and then the Americans took the lead. This is the preoccupation of the book. He means to give the reader an idea as to the structure of this order and how it functions and has historically functioned. Meade gives ample space to the critics of this order, he does not dismiss them out of hand; however he still remains a believer in the necessity of this order, albeit with reservations as to its certain practices.
However, in his enthusiasm for linking the English Maritime Order with the American Post WWII one, he completely skips over the exploration of American attitudes towards the idea of ‘Internationalism’ in 19th and early 20th century. Certainly, a historian such as him must know that leading Americans from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to Mark Twain and Calvin Coolidge were against the idea of active invovlement in international politics. Thus, he simplifies his task, by completely dropping the history of the ‘non-interventionist’ position of American classical liberals, whose philosophy he otherwise supports more or less.
He also does not offer much in the way of explaining the benefits of this order to the residents of these countries. What matters if there is instability half the world away or sea lanes are clogged half the ocean away, if the internal dynamics of these countries - capitalism, rationalism, liberalism - keep improving the lives domestically (as author himself tells us earlier in the book)? That was the key question that popped in my mind again and again and the question that was left unanswered by the author.
Despite these two cases I would have liked Meade to write about, I would definitely recommend ‘God and Gold’ to anybody with interest in world politics. You will learn a lot of interesting historical facts. Meade also has a humble understanding of the problems invovled in promulgating a just ‘maritime order’ and he is able to bring keen insights from various thinkers to his discussions.
On the light note, there is also a reserved and subtle humor flowing through the first two parts of the book. Read the quote of a man whom Meade refers to sarcastically as “renowned social critic” and see if you don’t double over laughing at the hysteria and hilarity of it.
Poorly organized, weakly supported.:
This books covers a lot of interesting territory. Unfortunately it does so in a haphazard and totally unplanned manner. The author is clearly very good at generating the written word. He is unfortunately not very good at actually planning what he’s going to write about or why. This makes it very difficult to stick with the book until the (phew!) end. Also, this book is largely unsupported by other sources. There are VERY occasional notes thrown in there to make it look like he actually based this book on existing knowledge. But don’t get me wrong: I very much appreciate the author’s attempt to synthesize all of these disparate literatures. But I fear it was done sloppily, perhaps because of time pressure to get the book out there? Or perhaps because the author prefers to just plain write rather than to slow down in order check and cite other sources? Overall an interesting idea for a book that is unfortunately poorly organized and weakly supported.
Although much narrower in scope, I much prefer the wonderfully-written and well-planned book “The Marketplace of Revolution” by T.H. Breen. Breen cares enough about his readers to put painstaking effort into writing a quality book.
