Uncertainty paralyzes an economy. When politicians argue endlessly about budgets and the high costs of social benefits, families stop spending. Over the course of decades, as evidence mounts on climate change and governments struggle to develop regulations, corporations lack goals for future innovation. Society lumbers on in unsustainable ways.
Culture does not grow in isolation, and its truest practitioners explore and adapt. And so, the human story is one of countless exchanges and influences, suggests Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan, editor of “The Role of the Arab-Islamic World in the Rise of the West.” Too often, Europeans have neglected to credit Islamic influences. “What seems to be a lack of correct citation in European scholarship, particularly in the Middle Ages, may have been due to different practices within Europe at the time,” Al-Rodhan writes in the introduction, adding that religious animosity may have also played a role.
The United States remains a major force in world affairs, but can no longer call the shots on shaping world order.
Analysts have long warned that the US-Chinese relationship is imbalanced – with the US borrowing heavily for wasteful consumption and China saving and investing more in manufacturing and infrastructure and less in consumption. Spurring China to act are the global economic recession, triggered by a US housing bubble and debt crisis; ongoing uncertainty about US willingness to control spending and make timely debt payments; and US propensity to blame others for its own mismanagement .
