From Wealth to Power

Fareed Zakaria examines why the United States remained a minor diplomatic power for decades after becoming the world's richest nation following the Civil War. He argues that the transition to a global superpower was only possible once the federal government developed the institutional strength to harness national wealth for foreign expansion. The work utilizes 'state-centered realism' to analyze how internal administrative shifts, rather than just material wealth, transformed America's internati...