Includes bibliographical references (p. [281]-297) and index.

Pt. I. Context. A serpent in paradise ; A summary of the promised future ; What they said it would do ; What somebody forgot to mention ; A short history of economics becoming religion. -- Pt. II. The rise. 1971 ; The vacuum ; The king's foot ; Selected romantic enthusiasms ; The gathering force ; Crucifixion economics. -- Pt. III. The plateau. Success ; 1991 ; The ideology of progress ; 1995. -- Pt. IV. The fall. A negative equilibrium ; NGOs and God ; A chronology of decline ; A chronology of decline: the Malaysian breakout ; The end of belief ; India and China ; New Zealand flips again. -- Pt. V. And where are we going now? The new vacuum: an interregnum of morbid symptoms ; The new vacuum: is the nation-state back? ; Negative nationalism ; The normalization of irregular warfare ; Positive nationalism.

Follows globalization from its promising beginnings in the 1970s through to the increasing deregulation in industry, and into the 1990s, when regional economic collapses and concern for the environment and for the rights of workers led to widespread protest and disillusionment. In the wake of globalism's collapse, nationalism of the best and worst sort, Saul demonstrates, shows signs of making a remarkable, unexpected recovery.