A quick survey shows that the world is undergoing a kind of
political consolidation. In addition to cultural and economic
globalization, human societies are also bringing their political
entities together. Various regions of the world have already
undergone successful unions, the most prominent being China. The
United States has already done it, but it took a hundred years
and a civil war that killed 2% of its citizens. And of course,
there’s Europe. It’s currently undergoing a well-earned and
peaceful political unification process. But like Americans,
Europeans didn’t take the easy path. The two World Wars of the
twentieth century are often seen as a part of the same
overarching conflict — a European civil war in which various
colonial, political, and ideological interests fought to force
the direction of the consolidation process.