An illuminating account by Walter Russell Mead of the birth and rise of the global political and economic system that, sustained first by Britain and now by America, created the modern world.

The astonishingly frank and intimate story of Silicon Valley’s dominant venture capital firms—and how their strategies and fates have shaped the path of innovation and the global economy.

The United States has had a more successful foreign policy than any other great power in history. Council Senior Fellow Walter Russell Mead argues that the United States is successful because its strategy is rooted in Americans' concrete interests, which value trade and commerce as much as military security.

“Dark times,” Hannah Arendt once noted, “are not only not new, they are no rarity in history.” She maintained her conviction, however, “that even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect s…