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Article: Toward a New Concert of Nations An American Perspective.
- Article from:
- World Policy Journal
- Article date:
- September 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 World Policy Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In much of recorded history, great regional powers have often further asserted themselves as empires. But the imperial model - be it Roman, Byzantine, Habsburg, Ottoman, or British - ideally provided not only security for its own citizens but guaranteed an ordered world in which those outside its immediate domain, who accepted the imperial dictates, also benefited from the orderliness - political, legal, economic - imposed by the imperial hegemon. To be sure, empires require constant vigilance against those who may wish to overturn them - avafy's proverbial barbarians at the gates. In due course, all empires disintegrate. The Roman Empire, at its height an achievement of ...