“History on an epic
scale—sweeping, provocative, and unsparing in its judgment."
—Andrew Bacevich, author of After the Apocalypse: America's Role in
a World Transformed
An
immensely readable history, To
Govern the Globe
narrates the rising empires and fading world orders of the last seven
centuries, from the Iberian Age to the British Empire to the
post-World War II American era. As historian Alfred McCoy explains,
each world order has been defined by shifting principles of
sovereignty, debates over human rights, and the quest for profitable
forms of energy. Today as the US world order, with its voracious
consumption of fossil fuels, faces mounting crises, McCoy shows how
past patterns of energy use will trouble the planet for the rest of
this century and beyond. This paperback edition has a new preface by
the author.
