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God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World By Walter Russell Mead ( Knopf )
Release Date: 2007-10-09
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Product Description
An illuminating account 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.
Walter Russell Mead, one of our most distinguished foreign policy experts, makes clear that the key to the predominance of the two countries has been the individualistic ideology of the prevailing Anglo-American religion. Mead explains how this helped create a culture uniquely adapted to capitalism, a system under which both countries thrived. We see how, as a result, the two nations were able to create the liberal, democratic system whose economic and social influence continues to grow around the world.
With wit, verve, and stunning insight, Mead recounts what is, in effect, the story of a centuries-long war between the English-speaking peoples and their enemies. Sustained by control of the oceans that surround them, the British and their American heirs built a global system of politics, power, investment, and trade over the past three hundred years. Along the way, the two nations developed a sophisticated grand strategy that brought the English-speaking powers to a pinnacle of global power and prestige unmatched in the history of the world.
Since Oliver Cromwell's day, the English-speakers have seen their enemies as haters of liberty and God who care nothing for morality, who will do anything to win, and who rely on a treacherous fifth column to assure victory. Those enemies, from Catholic Spain and Louis XIV to the Nazis, communists, and Al-Qaeda, held similar beliefs about their British and American rivals, but we see that though the Anglo-Americans have lost small wars here and there, they have won the major conflicts. So far.
The stakes today are higher than ever; technological progress makes new and terrible weapons easier for rogue states and terror groups to develop and deploy. Where some see an end to history and others a clash of civilizations, Mead sees the current conflicts in the Middle East as the latest challenge to the liberal, capitalist, and democratic world system that the Anglo-Americans are trying to build. What we need now, he says, is a diplomacy of civlizations based on a deeper understanding of the recurring conflicts between the liberal world system and its foes. In practice, this means that Americans generally, and especially the increasingly influential evangelical community, must develop a better sense of America's place in the world.
Mead's emphasis on the English-speaking world as the chief hero (and sometimes villain) in modern history changes the way we see the world. Authoritative and lucid, God and Gold weaves history, literature, philosophy, and religion together into an eminently important work—a dazzling book that helps us understand the world we live in and our tumultuous times.
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 Lacks a Central Thread ( northriverventures )
Anyone who starts a history of the Anglosphere with the Glorious Revolution has a firm grasp on the fundamentals of liberalism and how it came to primacy so fast and has stayed that way for over three centuries. But Mead soon starts to flail about in dozens of directions. That he can do so and still write cogently after 400 pages is a credit to his intellect. But the force of his thesis quickly gets lost in a blizzard erudition.
What Mead lacks a central thread to his thinking.
It would have been much simpler to have pointed out that all successful civilizations have a distinct information cost advantage over their competitors. Liberalism has driven us much further down the information cost curve than our contemporaries for centuries, so we dominate. Rome, China, Persia, Egypt, and Sumer all had similar information costs advantages in their time.
Having said that, Mead's work would have hung together magnificently and his foreign policy advice -- which has the merit of being sensible -- would have come into sharper focus.
For example, how will China, as I asked in FutureWealth (St. Martins 2000), weather a drop in information costs that does to the Party what the Internet did to the recording industry and is now doing to our newspapers? It is not enormously hard to see that this could get real ugly, real fast. And that fast on the Moore Curve can be like what happened to DEC: blink and it's gone.
We have to think about this. Maritime power, which Mead celebrates as did Mahan, definitely contributes to our role in the balance of power. But it is not clear what it does for us in the face of a nuclear power and economy the size of China's slipping over the Event Horizon into the maw of the Internet Black Hole. Mead does not explain either what it is about liberalism that will (or will not) keep us from the same fate. How many DECs, Compaqs, and Tribunes can we take and survive? Even prosper?
Try as we might, we cannot avoid the compressive, Darwinian force of falling information costs. Had Mead made the Glorious Revolution and Bank of England the markers that put the Anglosphere ahead of the information cost curve, and scketched what might drive us to fall off, his book would have become Ricardian in its greatness.
Checking Mead's bibliography, I can see what went wrong in "God and Gold.". He curiously neglected the great classic of his own field, Harold Innis' "Empire and Communications" (University of Toronto Press). And it shows.
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 Creating the Modern World ( bookscd11 )
It is still slightly startling the lengths to which the world has been transformed by the Anglo-American dynamic force. Even nations that berate us strive to emulate the ideas and ideals contained within our history and culture. This is not a simple "We Are The Best" promo ad. The author attempts to answer many basic questions.
Why did the tiny island of Britain and its former colony rise to the top and stay there? Why, with our evident material abundance and political and religious freedom, do others malign the Anglo-American way? Why are political and economic freedom two sides to the same coin and why was religion such a huge factor in our ascendancy?
Starting at the beginning (control of the seas) and continuing through the rise of credit, liberal capitalism and the industrial revolution, the author paints a picture of a people willing to break with religious, ethnic, political and economic tradition. Our willingness (some say obsession) with rapid, continual change is perhaps the most importantant factor in our dominance. Cultures that refuse to accept change start at a huge disadvantage.
As the book progresses, the scene changes from Britain to America, as the Old World hands the keys to the New World. Other factors are discussed: The lack of strong central governments and thus central planning that has been so ruinous to so many nations, the pluralistic religious tradition and our refusal to adopt ideology over experience. "W" (& others) receive some heavy-handed swipes for various misdeeds and our provincialism - the inability to see others from their point of view - is given a slap on the wrist. My Grade - A
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A true 5-star read! ( armchairinterviewscom )
Anglo-Americans have been on the winning side in every international conflict since the Glorious Revolution in 1688. That is an astounding record covering some ten major conflicts over 300 years, although the American Revolution was a given. According to Mead, these outcomes were not just the result of an incredible streak of good luck, but due to the inherent characteristics of Anglo-Americans and the manner that they helped to mold their respective foreign policies.
Mead, in this erudite yet controversial treatise, strongly purports that the financial infrastructure and the individualistic ideology of Christianity that Anglo-American civilization came to embody were driving forces that allowed Britain, and later America, to win wars and transform the political and economic landscape of the world. Furthermore, he suggests that this commercial and religious zeal, along with the English language, democratic political institutions, and naval power were critical elements in its success.
One might be tempted to reject his proposals out-of-hand as the prattling of an ethnocentric and Christian-chauvinistic ideologue, but the wealth of his knowledge and the vigor of his analysis suggest he cannot so readily be dismissed. In addition, he strongly chides the United States for giving little thought to the meaning of the power it has accumulated and some very poor choices of its use as well. He specifically states that Islam and Islamic countries are far from inherently incompatible with an Anglo-American worldview. He singles out for criticism both George Bush and Tony Blair for an overly moralistic foreign policy and the possible dire consequences of such a position.
Despite the very seriousness of the topics dealt with by Mead, his style of writing is both accessible and entertaining, with many allusions to literary works from Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and Lewis Carroll to the headier works of philosophers Henri Bergson and Karl Popper.
Whether one buys all of Mead's tenets or not, his proposal is sure to evoke considerable thought, discussion, and reflection on what has made Britain - and then the United States - world powers, and what needs to be done to maintain that hierarchy.
Armchair Interviews says: A 5-star read of current public affairs importance.
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Hitting the bull's eye
Dr. Russel Meade's God and Gold must add to the glory of the author's other illustrious works. His account of Anglo-American history is simply electrifying and bang on target. The dominance of the Western Civilization spearheaded by Britain and America for several centuries is unraveling now and we are faced with a stuation that prevailed at the end of the first millennium.
Indeed it is necessary to go to the root in order to accurately discover the problems and ills of the successive eras. This Dr. meade has done excellently in this book.This book is a worthy successor of Huntington's ideas since the Western Civilization is now being challenged by other civilizations.
It would have been better if Dr. Meade delved further into the political aspect of this Anglo-American sojourn. Nevertheless full marks to the author's efforts and every reader will find something new and absorbing in this book. I think this is a true consummation of his massive intellectual knowledge.
Gautam Maitra
Author of 'Tracing the Eagle's Orbit: Illuminating Insights into Major US Foreign Policies since Independence'.
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Change is what makes America great ( trushton@asu.edu )
"Change" is why Great Britain and now the United States became the dominant economic, military and social leaders for the past century, writes Mead in this superb history.
It's a valid lesson in this era of fundamentalist Christians, Moslems, Wall Street analysts, laissez fairists and other terrorists who assume they have discovered the perfect way of life, liberty, happiness and easy profits for all true believers. In brief, he doesn't suggest imposing change for the sake of change; he emphasizes the ability to change as conditions change and because our knowledge grows over time.
The delightful element is Mead's ability to use analogies, quotes and examples from sources as disparate as Lewis Carroll to John Milton to Thomas Cranmer and Reinhold Niebuhr and ranging from The Walrus and the Carpenter to Original Sin to Greed to the Invisible Hand and the Whig narrative. It's a relevant romp through history based on the premise that even conservatives can change -- even if slowly.
The writing is a delight, the history is masterful.
He succinctly rejects the neo-conservative follies who argue America is in moral, military, economic and spiritual decline; instead of the usual focus on guns, butter and Bibles. Mead argues America's strength is its ability to handle change when necessary.
Such intangibles are the foundation of a great society. The ability to change and yet retain impeccable financial integrity is a remarkable duality. It's why the bankers' bailouts are vital; not to prop up bozos, but to retain the integrity of the financial system.
Now, for the quibbles of a quidnunc: As brilliant as Mead is in his analysis, he overlooks an equally relevant factor -- the refusal to quit, to give up, to surrender.
"For three years, Hitler beat Britain and its allies everywhere he faced them . . ." Mead states, overlooking Hitler's failures to win the Battle of Britain, or to successfully blockade Britain or demoralize the people by terror bombing. It was not Churchill who stood alone against Hitler; it was 60 million Brits who refused to be bullied.
This refusal to give up is the quality that defeated Napoleon, beat the British in the U.S. War of Independence and Americans in Vietnam. Many countries share it in military terms; but, the British and Americans have the same stubborn determination in most things -- not just military -- they set out to accomplish. The Panama Canal was built by determination as much as by skill, talent and intrigue.
The unique American quality is often a persistence in demanding "new and improved" change, plus giving freedom to dissenters who challenge anything, everything and everyone in society. Every intelligent person can recognize a need for change; but, two further qualities are essential -- tolerating and even honouring those who advocate it, and the wisdom to know what, when and how to implement it.
All in all, a superb account of how we got to where we are today and what we need to maintain leadership.
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