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

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Michael Mandelbaum, one of America's foremost thinkers on world politics, has written a book about the political and economic forces shaping the world. His analysis is a model of clarity and incisiveness and offers a refreshing alternative to the now-standard prophecies of gloom and doom. Mandelbaum is a professor, but he writes like a novelist, and in this book, which gives the average reader a wonderful framework for understanding everything in the news today and tomorrow, he makes his points with great stories, and even some jokes. He's a great writer, and I recommend this book without hesitation. It's a pleasure to read, from start to finish. It makes sense of our world, which many say has been irrevocably changed by the September 11 attacks, without getting caught in the weeds and by highlighting the critical, long-term ideas and trends that are shaping it. There's no better book out there if you want to understand where we are headed and why. A great buy--and a great read.

It is rare these days to find a book on world affairs that has an original and provocative thesis and that is also a pleasure to read. Mandelbaum has written just such a volume. His purpose is nothing less than to identify the main forces--markets and democracy--shaping the contemporary world, and he does so by moving effortlessly from the overall claim to real-world examples and back again. The lines of the forest are always in view but there are plenty of trees, and the main argument is made with compelling clarity, conviction, and the occasional bit of humor. Despite Mandelbaum's crystal clear prose, it's apparent that some reviewers (see below) fail to grasp his main points. Fundamentalist Islam as an alternative to liberal democratic capitalism? Just where exactly have people, when given the opportunity to freely elect their leaders, chosen a Taliban-like model? And what have such regimes, when they have grabbed power, brought people except poverty and brutality? As for the absence of capitalism in the Judeo-Christian world in the 7th and 8th centuries (!), one need not have read Karl Polanyi's "Great Transformation" to understand that many complex changes had to unfold before national markets arose; any regular history book should suffice. Modern democracy, too, could not have taken root over a thousand years ago for precisely the same reason. Mandelbaum is not saying that all you need for markets and democracy is the Judeo-Christian ethic; he identifies it as being AMONG the critical factors that promoted their growth. Alas, even the most lucid writer is fated to have his ideas misunderstood. Buy the book; it's terrific.

If you, like me, have become a follower of the thoughts of Thomas Friedman, you'll love this book, too. Its clear, entertaining detail of "liberal" history---and in this context, even Newt Gingrich was a liberal---and the triumph of the ideas of Woodrow Wilson is a great read. I credit Friedmen with awakening interest in foreign policy analysis, but I credit people like Mandelbaum, Friedman and Walter Russell Mead for providing foreign policy analysis that is passionate and engaging, rather than what I expected, which was dry and over-informative.

My only criticism of the book was the first third was a little repetitive. He kept repeating the part about the triumph of Wilson's ideas, but I started to say, "Hey, I GET IT already."

Anyway, that shouldn't scare anyone off. If you are interested in this type of reading, I would highly recommend reading this one.

Modern media often creates a myopic sense of history. We become so focused on what has happened in the last few years, that we miss the big pictures. Mike Mandelbaum looks at the last hundred or so years to remind us that the core values most Americans treasure -- Peace, Liberty and Free Markets -- are not in retreat, but have been increasingly adopted by the rest of the world. Mandelbaum also reminds us that historical trends do not move in straight lines -- that even as the world moved inexorably in these directions during the 20th Century, we still experienced wars, brutal dictators, and popular proponents of centralized economic planning. It gives one a much greater sense of optimism that the negative reporting from our daily media will one day look as silly as those who "reported" in the sixties that Communism had proved itself a viable alternative to Western Capitalism.

Despite its subtitle, the author's focus is on explaining 19th & 20th century world history. Tutoring without condescension, he explains fundamentals of historical interpretation, and how democracy, free markets, and peace emerged as unchallenged principles for governance and international relations following the end of the cold war. The legacy of the Cold War is the historical demonstration of the failure of communism, in any incarnation, to deliver what people generally expect governments to deliver - peace, order, and material well-being. A whirlwind world tour examines the status of the implementation and acceptance of these ideas in various regions, and the risks remaining. Despite the verdict of history, there are holdouts - notably China and the mid-East - and resistance to full implementation. The biggest risk to world peace is found in China, where the potential for war over the status of Taiwan is unmitigated by China's participation in the global economy. But the author also worries over the possibility of failure in the "core region" of the world, for example rejection of free trade for protective tariffs & quotas for domestic political reasons could send the world back to the conflicted & warlike condition driven by defeated ideas.

Disappointment - the author dismisses the Islamic challenge to the Western world because they offer no viable alternative. Rule by religious elites not chosen democratically - including a cluster of values such as dispute resolution thru trial by combat on a national scale, economic policy reduced to trading for short-term profit without long-term investment - these ideas appeal not because they reject the West and its ideology. The indigenous peoples of the Islamic world believe that ideals of personal submission to God's will, governmental enforcement of His laws, and restoration of the cultural dominance of these values transcend and triumph over ideas put forth in this book. China may fight a war for rational, if poorly thought-out reasons. But the dragons' lair of Middle East politics has sucked us into wars for causes that can only be understood outside the author's framework. Thus the author's historical treatise falls far short. Peace, democracy, and free markets are rooted in Judeo-Christian values. Why did they fail in the 7th and 8th centuries, and what will prevent a recurrence in the 21st? Without this analysis the story is incomplete. The author's conclusion that these ideas have achieved hegemonic status rings empty.

This is a magnificent book - I can happily recommend it to anyone, regardless of their politics (an all too rare thing these days, as the culture wars spread ever wider). The West ought to remember its roots, and why it is where it is today. A book like this is therefore very timely and well worth reading. Christopher Catherwood, historian, teacher and author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)

Mandelbaum has a great writing style -- he takes complex topics and presents his ideas in ways that make them appear simple and even obvious. A great book that every lay person with an interest in world economy and government ought to read

Quite a brilliant work, this book is a synopsis of the ideas that have `conquered the world' in the 20th century, ideas that remain a benchmark of America's policies in the world. The first policy is capitalism, the idea of free markets was challenged by Marxism, an ideology that proved itself a nightmare and a destructive, coercive, suppressive influence in the last century. Secondly the author brilliantly demonstrates how democracy was originally encouraged at the Versailles conference following WWI where Woodrow Wilson made `war for democracy' a policy of America. Lastly he examines how `peace' as a virtue of classical liberalism is the pursuit of today's most powerful nations. In previous periods of history powerful nations sued their power destructively in wars of conquest, such as the Romans, the English or Napoleon. Today's American `empire' is not one of war, despite the war in Iraq, but rather of a restrained giant using its power to coerce other nations to follow the methods of democracy, peace and free markets, however the coercive influence of America is not like Rome or England or Communist Russia, or Fascist Germany, rather it is one where power is used selectively, in a clauswitzien sense, only as the last resort of politics. Power organizations such as the Un, the World Bank and the IMF use pressure for democracy to go hand in hand with their loans tot third world nations, while not always successful this policy is slowly bringing democracy, equality, and freedoms to places like Latin America, where in the 1950s almost all countries were dictatorships. The `ideas the conquered the world' also run counter to the theory that human nature is hobbesian, in the sense that we are told by cynics that Islam is not compatible with democracy or that Catholicism is not compatible, these canards have been thrown out by those who seek to bring the American revolution to the world. This is the thesis of this book and the historical synopsis presented, brilliant, interesting and controversial.

Seth J. Frantzman

On page 398, Mandelbaum provides what I consider the most significant words in his book: "So a world of liberal sovereign states qualifies as the second-best solution, after WORLD GOVERNMENT, to the problems of nuclear war, economic collapse, and global climate change. If not the best of all imaginable solutions, it is the best of all feasible ones."

However, the greater the number of, and the more powerful, the illiberal states are, then the so-called best feasible solution becomes even more infeasible. There must be integrated frameworks or solutions for the enhancement of peace, democracy, and free markets, which happen to work only when they do, and only when they work together.

But how do we get them to work as a triad, not individually ? This is the important question. I believe that the answer lies in any framework that promotes direct genuine people empowerment within each state.

One way is the creation of positive composite institutions, or the transformation of the well-funded international foundations into positive composite institutions, the end-object of which is the promotion of direct people empowerment within the illiberal zones of their own countries, and within the less liberal states in the less-developed world.

It is no longer a question of "what" and "object", but of "how" and "ways and means".

Veredigno Atienza
"Creating Systems of Justice: Philanthropy at the Highest Level"

Michael Mandelbaum clearly explains that the liberal theory of history is made up of two tenets:

1. Free markets, through their workings such as constitutionalism, civil society, the rule of law, property-protecting and contract-enforcing state, entrepreneurship, competition and mass consumption, tend to promote democracy and enrich most of their economic agents over time (pg. 11, 234-237, 257, 268-274, 289-295, 313-318, 394). A responsible social safety net, however, is key to stability of free markets (pg. 299-304, 340-341, 402).

2. Democracies are inclined to conduct peaceful foreign policies (pg. 11, 237). Popular sovereignty, constitutionalism, civil society and political habit of compromise are key drivers of peace and minority protection (pg. 249-250, 259, 269). Furthermore, defense dominance and weapon system transparency are built on the recognition that the problem of collective security can only be solved through systemic cooperation nurtured over time (pg. 113-114, 129-131, 231).

The common denominator of free markets, democracy and peace is their focus on the individual (pg. 31). Illiberalism such as Communism and Fascism stresses the strength of the state through group cohesion and solidarity rather than the welfare of individuals (pg. 254, 336).

Before WWI, this set of liberal ideas was not firmly established in the British Empire and the U.S. from which it came. Britain was the most fervent advocate of free trade but was clearly ambivalent about self-government beyond its White Dominions and dismissal of any limit to power projection. The U.S. was protectionist rather than a convert to free trade, was an impire rather than an empire until the 1890s and had not yet granted the benefits of democracy to all its inhabitants in spite of its unequivocal constitution (pg. 33, 87).

At the Conference of Paris in 1919 just after WWI, President Woodrow Wilson could not convince the victorious empires how closely related were the rise of free markets and the devaluation of war. The high price of war to the victors and perhaps more importantly poor salesmanship from President Wilson himself in the U.S. and abroad ultimately led to the rise and dismissal of an emasculated League of Nations and disastrous economic protectionism in the 1930s (pg. 20-24, 359, 363, 393).

The emergence of Fascism and Communism, two new murderous, inefficient rivals to Liberalism, was the bitterest legacy of WWI, the Conference of Paris and subsequent peace conferences (pg. 33, 41, 54-55). Liberalism succeeded in defeating and discrediting Fascism at the end of WWII in 1945 and Communism at the end of the Cold War in 1989 (pg. 253).

The liberal theory of history has found its historical validation for example in the successful conversion of fascist Germany and Japan to Liberalism in the decades after their crushing defeat in 1945. These successful conversions to Liberalism demonstrate which way the lagging peripheral countries should go to ultimately emerge in the limelight (pg. 6, 79-86, 174-181, 279-280).

Mandelbaum also reminds his audience that in the post-cold war era, the core countries have lost much interest in what is going on in the periphery (pg. 96, 198-199). China, Russia and the Middle East are three major exceptions to this loss of interest in the periphery (pg. 7). Core countries legitimately fear that undesirable developments in some peripheral countries, especially failed states, if left unchecked, could have a negative impact in their backyard (pg. 182-187).

The Middle East is of interest to core countries due to its reserves of oil, the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the presence of fearsome terrorist networks on its soil (pg. 97-99, 199-230). Operation Iraqi Freedom is an expression of this interest in the region on behalf of a well-understood Liberalism (pg. 403-412).

China and Russia remain a source of concern to the core countries because they have not yet fully embraced the tenets of Liberalism (pg. 306-307, 390-391). Like Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, Russia and China are not satisfied with their military place in the world today and can become a source of instability tomorrow (pg. 160-174). Furthermore, both countries harbor powerful economic ambitions (pg. 160). The inability of economic socialism to be productive enough and meet the wants and needs of its economic agents behind the military sphere has made a gradual transition to economic liberalism vital to the survival of the Chinese and Russian nomenklatura (pg. 48, 52, 66-67, 99-104, 261-265, 291, 309). No Communist regime in the 20th century came to power through a coup d'etat staged by an impoverished, mobilized and ideologically committed working class (pg. 233).

The current liberal hegemony, which is not per se irreversible, does not make everybody happy. Some of its most determined opponents include Middle Eastern terrorists and the western-inspired anti-globalization movement who do not offer any constructive, workable alternative to Liberalism (pg. 38-39).

The United States, spiritual successor of the British Empire, has a key role to play in the successful spread and survival of this Wilsonian triad (pg. 7, 88, 327, 358, 381-382, 404). The technological, economic, military and cultural leadership of the U.S. requires that Americans bear a higher burden than their fair share in the maintenance and development of Liberalism (pg. 88, 153, 364-365, 389). The harshest critics of the U.S. for example in Europe and Asia should keep this in mind instead of taking it for granted (pg. 153, 363-365, 388-390).

Passing interest in the (most dangerous) failed states is a recipe for disaster (pg. 193-199). In too many places around the world, democracy and capitalism are foreign transplants that must be cultivated long enough to take deep roots (pg. 259-260, 297-298, 311-313, 386-387). Ultimately, with might come not only rights but also responsibilities (pg. 388-389).