Reviewing the global economy: the UN and Bretton Woods systems

Abstract

Humankind has been searching for millennia for ways to govern itself at large scale and over great distances. Overwhelmingly, the dominant solution had been the creation of empires, defined as multi-ethnic or multinational states with political and/or military dominion over populations who are culturally and ethnically distinct from the ruling imperial ethnic group and its culture. In the modern Westphalian era of the past several centuries, a hybrid system of governance around the world emerged, comprising the nation state (in Europe and the Americas) and international empires (across Africa, Asia and Oceania).