In the late eighteenth century, the political economist Adam Smith predicted an eventual equalization of power between the conquering West and the conquered non-West. In this magisterial new work, Giovanni Arrighi shows how China's extraordinary rise invites us to read The Wealth of Nations in a radically different way than is usually done. He examines how the recent US attempt to bring into existence the first truly global empire in world history was conceived in order to counter China's spectacular economic success of the 1990s, and how the US's disastrous failure in Iraq has made the People's Republic of China the true winner of the US War on Terror. In the 21st century, China may well become again the kind of noncapitalist market economy that Smith described, under totally different domestic and world-historical conditions.
- ISBN10 1844671046
- ISBN13 9781844671045
- Publish Date 17 November 2007
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 8 January 2015
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Verso Books
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 418
- Language English