Despite the near-religious conviction with which it was originally conceived, a growing vagueness now surrounds its original promise that nation-states were heading toward irrelevance, to be replaced by the power of global markets; that economics, not politics or arms, would determine the course of human events; that growth in international trade would foster prosperous markets that would, in turn, abolish poverty and change dictatorships into democracies. Yet, contends Saul, little has transpired as predicted. The collapse of globalism has left us struggling with a paradox - a chaotic vacuum. The United States appears determined to ignore its international critics. Europe is faced with problems of immigration, racism, terrorism and renewed internal nationalism. Many of these issues call for uniquely European solutions born out of local experiences and needs. Elsewhere, the world looks for answers to African debt, the AIDS epidemic and the return of fundamentalism, all of which perversely refuse to disappear despite the theoretical rise in global prosperity.
