Sessions of this study group provide feedback on draft chapters of a book by Walter Russell Mead examining America’s current position in the world (and the fight against terror) from the perspective of 400 years of Anglo-American history, and it proposes that the conventional narrative of modern history—the rise and fall of Europe—be replaced by an alternative: the continuing rise of a maritime, liberal world system based first on the power of Great Britain, then of the United States.

The book further examines the implications of American power and social dynamism for the twenty-first century. Mead argues, contrary to writers like Fukuyama and Mandelbaum, that the twenty-first century could well be even bloodier and more tumultuous than the twentieth, and the United States had better prepare for this possibility. He contends that this is so because American dynamism and strength, technological and therefore economic and social change will accelerate. At the same time, the inability of many world cultures to adapt will generate instability, continued inequality, and conflict into the future even as technological progress makes weapons of mass destruction easier to acquire and deliver.