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Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- 1 Introduction: Prospects and Problems in the New Century -- 2 Corporations and States: Factor Flows in the Twenty-First Century -- 3 The World Economy at the End of the Millennium -- 4 The Rise of the Politically Incorrect One-Handed Economist -- 5 The Economic Consequences of the Peace -- 6 Dancing with the Giant: The Transformation of North American Sovereignties Approaching the Twenty-First Century -- 7 Fifty Years of Peace and Prosperity -- 8 China, Japan, and Germany in the New World Polity -- 9 Human Capital in the Twenty-First Century -- 10 The Continuing Conundrum of Internal Conflict -- 11 Trading Up and Trading Down: The Impact of Technological Change on the International System -- 12 The Justifying State: Why Anarchy Doesn't Mean No Excuses -- 13 The Cold War and Its Ending in "Long-Duration" International History -- About the Editor and Contributors -- Index

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Democracy is overrated. Capitalism, on the other hand, doesn't get enough credit. In this provocative and engaging book, John Mueller argues that these mismatches between image and reality create significant political and economic problems--inspiring instability, inefficiency, and widespread cynicism. We would be far better off, he writes, if we recognized that neither system is ideal or disastrous and accepted instead the humdrum truth that both are "pretty good." And, to Mueller, that means good enough. He declares that what is true of Garrison Keillor's fictional store "Ralph's Pretty Good

Democracy is overrated. Capitalism, on the other hand, doesn't get enough credit. In this provocative and engaging book, John Mueller argues that these mismatches between image and reality create significant political and economic problems--inspiring instability, inefficiency, and widespread cynicism. We would be far better off, he writes, if we recognized that neither system is ideal or disastrous and accepted instead the humdrum truth that both are "pretty good." And, to Mueller, that means good enough. He declares that what is true of Garrison Keillor's fictional store "Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery" is also true of democracy and capitalism: if you can't get what you want there, "you can probably get along without it." Mueller begins by noting that capitalism is commonly thought to celebrate greed and to require discourtesy, deceit, and callousness. However, with examples that range from car dealerships and corporate boardrooms to the shop of an eighteenth-century silk merchant, Mueller shows that capitalism in fact tends to reward behavior that is honest, fair, civil, and compassionate. He argues that this gap between image and reality hampers economic development by encouraging people to behave dishonestly, unfairly, and discourteously to try to get ahead and to neglect the virtuous behavior that is an important source of efficiency and gain. The problem with democracy's image, by contrast, is that our expectations are too high. We are too often led by theorists, reformers, and romantics to believe that democracy should consist of egalitarianism and avid civic participation. In fact, democracy will always be chaotic, unequal, and marked by apathy. It offers reasonable freedom and security, but not political paradise. To idealize democracy, Mueller writes, is to undermine it, since the inevitable contrast with reality creates public cynicism

Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq, by Melvyn P. Leffler, New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. 368 pages. $27.95 cloth, e-book.

The establishment and maintenance of any existing "world order" is primarily based on a general aversion to international war and does not depend on the United States. This perspective disputes two explanations that rely heavily on American activities. One contends that the United States, aided perhaps by the attention- arresting fear of nuclear weapons, was necessary to provide worldwide security and thus to order the world. The other contends that the United States was instrumental, indeed vital, in constructing international institutions, conventions, and norms, in advancing economic development, and in expanding democracy, and that these processes have crucially helped to establish and maintain a degree of international peace. This article traces the rise of an aversion to international war and argues that this, not US efforts, should be seen as the primary causative or facilitating independent variable in the decline of international war. This perspective also suggests that world order can survive, or work around, challenges that might be thrown at it by the United States or anyone else, that fears that a rising China or an assertive Russia will upset the order are overdrawn, that there is scarcely any need for the maintenance of a large military force in being, and that, under the right conditions, international anarchy, could well be a desirable state.