Cultural imperialism out, cultural dialectic in.

THIS article offers some really interesting counterfactuals about cultural imperialism. Seems the relationship between globalisation and western culture is not a linear as we may assume.

And on the general topic THIS excellent piece in Foreign Affairs castes some interesting light on the US's embrace of rising India and China. It's the topic of our times - how to change the global architecture to accomodate these emerging giants. Institutions created in the 1940s ossify the world view of WW2's victors (particularly its western ones). Unreformed, they just won't cut it in future. These are very interesting issues - particularly for the US. How will it cope with sharing the limelight (and giving up a degree of autonomy)? And how will it manage the relative demographic and economic decline of Europe? Worth a read.

I'm thinking of introducing a rating system for articles - given that not everyone I know has my quota of reading hours each day. I'd give the first article 3.5 stars (a worthwhile caveat to a tired debate), and the second 4.5 stars (the most accessible synthesis of the India/China challenge I've read).