God and Gold () von Walter Russell Mead

Economist Books of the Year, 2007Financial Times Books of the Year, 2007God and Goldis a brilliantly stimulating and provocative look at why, for over 300 years, the Anglo-Saxon powers have dominated the world economically and militarily.For four hundred years, Britain, America and their allies have dominated the world both militarily and economically. They have won the wars - the hot wars, the cold wars and the trade wars - time and again; and yet the battle for hearts and minds has proved far harder to win. In God and Gold, Walter Russell Mead examines why this has been the case and what the overwhelming ascendancy and concentration of power in the hands of'les Anglo-Saxons' has meant for the direction of world history. In so doing, he sheds scintillating new light on the current political, economic and cultural climate, and suggests where we might be heading from here.

Walter Russell Mead is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for foreign policy at the US Council on Foreign Relations. He writes regularly forForeign Affairs, as well as for theNew York Times and theWashington Postand is a contributing editor on theLos Angeles Times. He is the author ofSpecial Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World (2001) andPower, Terror, Peace and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk (2005).