ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses a group of political scientists, economists, and historians assess these important developments. It deals with a variety of issues of history, of national security, and of political economy-areas with which Richard Rosecrance has been concerned throughout his career. The book argues that economic grief in the past has chiefly stemmed from the overruling of market forces by politicians. It concludes that economists have now finally gotten on top of their subject so that the advice they render is more likely than not to be sound and that policymakers have, often reluctantly, become willing to accept that advice. The book assesses the blurring of national political sovereignty that must emerge as the world enters an era dominated by economics. It focuses on the last of these problems: internal and communal conflict.
