A Brief History of Now: The Past and Present of Global Power

Acknowledgments
Praise for A Brief History of Now
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
1 Introduction: Setting the Frame
	Now
	Economic Globalization
	World Hegemony
	Democracy
	Socioeconomic Inequality Within and Between Societies
	Technological Innovations
	Climate Change
	Now and then: Trajectories in Global History
2 We Were All Brits (1851–1914)
	Hegemony, What Is It?
	Industrial Revolution
	Which Pyramid?
	The Industrial “Gradualution”
	Democratic Revolution
	The Synergic Revolutions
	Non-Identical Twins
	An Experiment with Synergy
	Another Set of Twins: Free Tradeand Comparative Advantage
	Two Sets of Twins on a World Tour: At Home in Western Europe
	Two Sets of Twins on a World Tour: Playing “Catch-22” with Gunpowder Empires
	Two Sets of Twins on a World Tour and the American Divergence
	Two Sets of Twins on a World Tour: The Scramble for Africa
	First Globalization and Britannization
	Spoiling the Hegemonic Party: The Exceptional Outliers
	All Aboard! Welcome to the Global Train
3 Until the “Big Brexit” (1914–1945)
	A Globally Convoluted Interplay
	Contested Hegemony, Head-On
	A Bigger Brother
	A Strange Couple
	A Global Communist Revolution
	Surprising Success
	By Reaction Against
	Directly Guided
	By Imitation
	Failure, the Mother of Improvisation
	The Carousel of Revolution
	The Other Carousel: Reaction
	A World Safe for Democracy
	It’s the Economy, Stupid!
	A Game Changer
	Second Round
	So Long to the Global Train!
4 When We Became Americans (1946–1973)
	The World Series
	Hegemony and Empire: Great Britain
	Hegemony and Empire: The United States
	Two Centuries at Odds—And Counting
	A Fourfold Big Stick
	A Huge Carrot Named the U.S. Economy
	An Alluring Dream Named the American Dream
	The Swirling Synergy of the American Triplets
	Great Britain: 20—United States: 34. A Different Model for World Hegemony
5 Or Else (1946–1973)
	A Very Straightforward Global Story for a Very Straightforward Answer
	From War to War to Cold War
	On the Right Side of the World Hegemon
	On the Wrong Side of the Counter-Hegemon
	The Soviet Union and China
	The Counter-Hegemonic Triplets: Powerful, but not as Much
	Under the Tracks of Entwined Nationalismand Socialism: Perón, Evita, and the Socialist Fatherland
	Entwined Nationalismand Socialism Throughout the Latin American Oligarchic Republics
	Entwined Nationalismand Socialism in Recently Emancipated Colonies Throughout the Middle East
	Straightforward: From Decolonization into Entwined Nationalismand Socialism in South Asia, South East Asia, and Africa
	Entwined Nationalismand Socialism Around the World: The Global Rise of Anti-Hegemonic Party States
	Pyramids into Diamonds
6 All Together Now: Becoming Global Citizens (1968–2003)
	The Revolutionary Processes (1968–1991): E Pluribus Unum (One Out of Many)
	1968, A Global Revolt
	1973, The Yom Kippur or Ramadan War
	1978, Deng Xiaoping Means “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”
	1982, Malvinas/Falkland Islands War
	1985, Gorbachev Means Glasnostand Perestroika
	1989, A Global Revolution
	1991, Hegemony and Globalization Reconciled
	Everything Falling into Place
	The Revolutionary Results: Neoliberal Reforms, Stronger Than Revolutions
	NeoliberalismMeans Growing Inequalities: The “Great Bifurcation”
	From Melting Pot to Salad Bowl
	Third Wave of Democracy
7 Falling Apart. Back to Nationalism (2003–2020)
	Hegemony and Globalization Reconciled but Spiraling Down
	Shaken American World Hegemony
	2007 Shaken Neoliberal Globalization
	Neoliberalism Challenged Around the World
	A Couple of Trump Cards: Technological and Ecological Disruptions
8 The Big Picture: Overall Patterns Amidst Convoluted Developments
	A Brief Recapitulation of Convoluted Developments
	Overall Patterns: Fivefold Correspondences
	Overall Patterns and Some of the Questions of the Present and Future
	Global Trajectories Crystalized in Global Regimes
Index