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ILLUSIONS OF POWER AND EMPIRE 1
Author(s) -
ROSENAU JAMES N.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
history and theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.169
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1468-2303
pISSN - 0018-2656
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2303.2005.00343.x
Subject(s) - empire , great power , politics , power (physics) , history , illusion , treaty , state (computer science) , diplomacy , variety (cybernetics) , epoch (astronomy) , world history , economic history , political economy , political science , ancient history , law , sociology , psychology , computer science , physics , stars , algorithm , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , computer vision
Subsequent to the end of the Cold War, analysts groped for an understanding of the overall structures of world politics that marked the emergence of a new epoch. As a result, the concept of empire became a major preoccupation, with the economic and military power of the United States considered sufficient for regarding it as an empire. Due to the proliferation of new microelectronic technologies and for a variety of other specified reasons, however, the constraints inherent in the new epoch make it seem highly unlikely that the U.S. or any other country can ever achieve the status of an empire. In effect, the substantial shrinkage of time and distance in the current period has led to the replacement of the age of the nation‐state that originated with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 with the age of the networked individual. It is an age that has developed on a global scale and that has brought an end to the history of empires.