A gathering of tribes -- The imperial millennia -- Caravans at rest -- A light unto the nations -- The ecumenical state -- The poet and "the prince" -- Perpetual war and "perpetual peace" -- Blood and leather -- The American centuries -- Monsters to destroy -- Empty chairs -- The master builder -- A trusteeship of the powerful -- An end and a beginning -- The unipolar decades -- The new world order -- Seizing the day -- Hard power -- A theory of the case -- Going it alone -- A consequential aberration -- Conclusion: The crucial years