Letters.

• Position: Letter to the Editor

Power Steering: In response to Walter McDougall's interesting review of my book, The Ideas That Conquered the World ("Power Steering", Winter 2002/03), I should like to make five points.

First, someone who has read the review but not the book would not be aware of the thesis of The Ideas. It is that the three great liberal ideas of peace, democracy and free markets dominate the world in the 21st century--not because they are practiced everywhere (obviously they are not) but rather in the sense that for the first time they have no serious rivals as formulas for organizing political and economic life. Whether the many countries that do not have genuinely democratic governments or effectively functioning free markets will acquire them is a question to which only the course of the 2 century will provide the answer. That is why, in a phrase McDougall quotes disapprovingly, I say in the Introduction (with tongue, of course, in cheek--but the humor is apparently too dry for some tastes) that the book will tell the reader "everything important about the twenty-first century except its outcome."

Second, McDougall says that I was "ambushed by Al-Qaeda [i.e. the attacks of September 11, 2001]" while my book was in press. I do not know, and McDougall does not say, where he obtained this piece of information, but it is false. The Ideas That Conquered the World WENT to press in June 2002, giving me ample time to reflect on the meaning of the events of September 11 and incorporate my conclusions into the book, conclusions that I have found no reason to revise since the book was published.

Third, McDougall writes that I "acknowledg[e] that the global triumph of liberalism will widen the gap between rich and poor." Wrong again; my view is the opposite of the one he imputes to me. The spread of liberal ideas and institutions, above all of working free markets and property- and rights-protecting governments, offers the best and perhaps the only hope for closing that gap, a point supported by a great deal of economic research.

The fourth point has to do with Europe. McDougall is right that I regard it as an attractive model that will help to promote, by its example, the three great liberal ideas. He disagrees because he finds Europe to be a terrible place, beset with "cultural demoralization, demographic decay, growing xenophobia and economic stagnation." For Europe to serve as a model for others does not, however, require that it be perfect (it isn't) or that the European Union be without flaws (readers of The National Interest will be familiar with these). Rather, the role 1 see for Europe requires that it be a more peaceful, prosperous and democratic place than it was for most of its history and than most other parts of the world are today. And anyone who doubts that either or both of these propositions are true is in need, to put it as neutrally as possible, of a deeper familiarity with European history and/or a wider acquaintance with the world beyond Europe and North America.

Finally, McDougall says The Ideas That Conquered the World is "muddled" and cites as evidence the similes employed in the book. (Several of those he lists as similes in fact appear in the book as metaphors.) Just why McDougall believes that the use of these two venerable literary devices is a sign of muddle I confess I cannot imagine. But if, for reasons he does not reveal, there is a connection between them, this puts me in extraordinarily distinguished (if muddled) literary and intellectual company.

MICHAEL MANDELBAUM

School of Advanced

International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Washington, DC

McDougall replies:

Having suffered from genuinely mean, ignorant, and far more critical book reviews than mine of The Ideas That Conquered the World, I both appreciate Mandelbaum's dismay and admire the grace of his rebuttal. Indeed, I believe his five points, if read together with my review, provide a thorough adumbration of the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in so ambitious a book. For those who have read only Mandelbaum's letter and not my review, however, I must iterate that I am a historian and the bulk of the review disputed the author's interpretation of history. None of his five points dispute my disputation. To be sure, the author zings me by suggesting that anyone doubting his propositions about Europe lacks familiarity with that continent's past. But the zing misses the mark. Aside from the fact that I have taught European history for thirty...