The great experiment: the story of ancient empires, modern states, and the quest for a global nation

This dramatic narrative of breathtaking scope and riveting focus puts story back into history. It is saga of how most ambitious of big ideas -- that a world made up of many nations can govern itself peacefully -- has played out over millennia. Humankind's Experiment goes back to most ancient of days -- literally to Garden of Eden -- and into present, with an eye to future.Strobe Talbott looks back to consolidation of tribes into nations -- starting with Israel -- and absorption of those nations into empires of Hammurabi, Pharaohs, Alexander, Caesars, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Ottomans, and Hapsburgs, through incessant wars of territory and religion, to modern alliances and global conflagrations of twentieth century.He traces breakthroughs and breakdowns of peace along way: Pax Romana, Treaty of Westphalia, Concert of Europe, false start of League of Nations, creation of flawed but indispensable United Nations, effort to build a world order after cold war, and America's unique role in modern history as the master builder of international system.Offering an insider's view of how world is governed today, Talbott interweaves through this epic tale personal insights and experiences and takes us with him behind scenes and into presence of world leaders as they square off or cut deals with each other. As an acclaimed journalist, he covered standoff between superpowers for more than two decades; as a high-level diplomat, he was in thick of tumultuous events in 1990s, when bipolar equilibrium gave way to chaos in Balkans, emergence of a new breed of international terrorist, and America's assertiveness during its unipolar moment -- which he sees as latest, but not last, stage in Great Experiment.Talbott concludes with a trenchant critique of worldview and policies of George W. Bush, whose presidency he calls a consequential aberration in history of American foreign policy. Then, looking beyond morass in Iraq and battle for White House, he argues that United States can regain trust of world by leading effort to avert perils of climate change and nuclear catastrophe.