On top of the world

摘要

Ian morris, a polymathic Stanford University professor of classics and history, has written a remarkable book that may come to be as widely read as Paul Kennedy's 1987 work, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers". Like Mr Kennedy's epic, Mr Morris's "Why the West Rules-For Now" uses history and an overarching theory to address the anxieties of the present. Mr Kennedy warned American policymakers of the consequences of "imperial overstretch", although it was the sudden implosion of the Soviet Union that proved the most spectacular vindication of his thesis.