Glossary
Who's Who

Part 1: The State of the World

[This is a brief summary of the factual basis for the rest of the book, independent of the politics that follows. It is constructed from a series of paragraphs, each summarizing a piece of the puzzle, starting from the most general physical characteristics of the world and proceeding into more details and forward historically.]

Outline

• The solar system within the universe and our disinterest in cosmology
• The size, mass, age, and composition of the earth
• Everything we need to know about the moon, which isn't much
• The sun, especially as our principal source of energy
• The atmosphere, its composition, density and thermodynamics
• Water, its states dependent on temperature as vapor, ocean and ice
• The tilt of the earth and the oscillation of seasons
• The earth's magnetic field
• Radioactivity, geothermal energy, and the earth's structure
• Plate tectonic basics: oceanic and continental crust, plates, trenches
• Volcanos, igneous rocks, mountain building, erosion, sedimentation
• The origin of life and its effects on carbon and oxygen cycles
• Solar energy storage as coal, oil and natural gas
• A map of climate: continents, oceans, thermal currents
• Origins and early settlement patterns of homo sapiens
• Hunter-gatherer tribal structure
• Early development of agriculture
• The domestication of animals and the harnessing of animal power
• The role of the surplus in economic, social, political development
• Organized warfare and empire building
• Development of axial age religions
• Development of science and technology
• Development of mining and chemistry
• The age of European exploration, expansion, and imperialism
• The slave trade and the development of a race-based caste system in the Americas
• The independence movement in the Americas
• Development of capitalism and class struggle
• Development of nation states in Europe
• Development of water power, fossil fuels, electricity
• European domination of major "old world" empires
• The exceptional case of Japan
• Imperialism, WWI, the end of European aristocracy
• Communist revolution in the Soviet Union and beyond
• Rise of fascism as the right-wing counter to communism
• The US during the imperialist era
• The rise of the US to world dominance via WWII
• Development of nuclear weapons and the deterence of war
• Further globalization