2008-09-05 The defining story of the age is globalization, not the war on terror

The West is distracted, says Gabor Steingart. We, and America in particular, are focused on the wrong things. "World history isn't being written in Afghanistan, Baghdad, or Tehran," he writes, "but in Shanghai. The fateful word confronting our generation is not terror, but globalization... The war for wealth, the bitter struggle for a share of affluence, and the related struggle over political and cultural dominance in the world, are the real conflicts of our day."

The War for Wealth goes on to explore this statement through a history of globalization, starting with the British empire and charting its decline through the World Wars. American power replaced European power, but is now being undermined itself by the rapidly growing economies of India and China.

Steingart has some difficult truths for the US economy and the state of our world trade system, but he has some solutions too. These include re-thinking free trade, and a closer alliance between the US and Europe. His analysis is good, but ultimately not quite broad enough. Steingart focuses on the emerging economies of China and India, and neglects the developing world. Even Russia barely gets a mention, surely an oversight, if events in Georgia are anything to go by. For the limited scope of Steingart's study, I'd give this three stars rather than four, but it remains a useful exploration of our globalizing world all the same.