Introduction -- NEW LESSONS FROM THE OLD WORLD: The slow death of the American dream -- The new land of opportunity -- The quiet economic miracle -- THE MAKING OF THE MODERN AGE: Space, time, and modernity -- Creating the individual -- Inventing the ideology of property -- Forging capitalist markets and nation-states -- THE COMING GLOBAL ERA: Network commerce in a globalized economy -- The "United States" of Europe -- Government without a center -- Romancing the civil society -- The immigrant dilemma -- Unity in diversity -- Waging peace -- A second enlightenment -- Universalizing the European Union.