San Antonio College Library

A history of Western civilization's rise to global dominance offers insight into the development of such concepts as competition, modern medicine, and the work ethic, arguing that Western dominance is being lost to cultures who are more productively utilizing Western techniques. "The rise to global predominance of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five hundred years. All over the world, an astonishing...

Sanchez tells the story of how Panama, though one of the smallest Latin American countries, played the largest symbolic role in America's ascent to world power status, particularly during the U. S. almost century-long occupation of the Canal Zone from 1903 until December 31, 1999. A narrow isthmus linking North America and South America, Panama's strategic geographic location and size has attracted the attention of strong nation-states for 500 years....

"A simple question lurks amid the considerable controversy created by recent U.S. policy: what road did Americans travel to reach their current global preeminence? Taking the long historical view, Michael Hunt demonstrates that wealth, confidence, and leadership were key elements to America's ascent. In an analytic narrative that illuminates the past rather than indulges in political triumphalism, he provides crucial insights into the country's problematic...

Francis Fukuyama's criticism of the Iraq war put him at odds with neoconservatives both within and outside the Bush administration. Here he explains how, in its decision to invade Iraq, the Bush administration failed in its stewardship of American foreign policy, in making preventive war the central tenet of its foreign policy, in misjudging the global reaction to its exercise of "benevolent hegemony," and in failing to appreciate the difficulties...