Global power is itself something extraordinary. It imbues those people who have experienced it with arrogance and self-confidence that is hard to exaggerate. First Britain, and then the USA, have behaved on the global stage as if their role as a world leader has been ordained by God. For Britain to give up her empire so easily in 1944, some devastating events had to have occurred.

What had changed by the end of the 1914-18 war? The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires had disappeared. The Chinese Empire remained in place, just about. The Russian Empire had erupted into a socialist revolution. This revolution would focus the minds of the European and American ruling classes for the next 70 years, the new socialist leaders would nationalise the companies privately owned by wealthy Europeans. They tampered with private ownership; previously, private property had been untouchable.