ENDLESS EMPIRE. SPAIN RETREAT, EUROPE'S ECLIPSE, AMERICA'S DECLINE

Throughout four millennia of recorded history there has been no end to empire, but instead an endless succession of empires. After f ive centuries of sustained expansion, the half-dozen European powers that ruled half of humanity collapsed with stunning speed after World War II, creating a hundred emerging nations in Asia and Africa. Amid this imperial transition, the United States became the n ew global hegemon, dominating this world order with an array of power that closely resembled that of its European predecessors...