ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in preceding chapter of this book. Communism and Nazism had both been defeated, the former by the powerful and mutually reinforcing combination of democratic ideals and the prosperity provided by free markets, and the latter by force of arms. Western ideas, developed in the nineteenth century and forcefully espoused by Woodrow Wilson in the aftermath of the First World War, had finally triumphed and were threatening to engulf even such countries as China. China may have emerged as a key part of the global economy by joining the liberal international economic order but it remains a one-party state; in 2014 respect for human rights had yet to become a universally accepted norm as evidenced by events in Syria. In contrast to the concentration of wealth in certain countries, the prevalence of poverty in other parts of the world remains endemic and often linked to lack of well-functioning governance structures.
