The book is divided into three parts with four chapters in each. "Part- 1 Ch1, The Tolerance Of Barbarians. Ch-1, The First Hegemon-Achemenid Persia. Ch-2, Tolerance In Rome's High Empire. Ch-3, China's Golden Age. Ch-4, The Great Mongol Empire.

Part-2 The Enlightening Of Tolerance Ch-5, The Purification Of Medieval Spain. Ch-6, The Dutch World Empire. Ch-7, Tolerance & Intolerance In The East. Ch-8, The British Empire.

Part-3 The Future Of World Dominance. Ch-9, The American Hyperpower. Ch-10, The Rise & Fall Of The Axis Powers. Ch-11, The Challengers. Ch-12, The Day Of Empire." I would read this chapter first & then the whole book.
In short the hyperpowers of Persia, Rome, Tang dynasty China, the Mongols, the Dutch, the British, & the USA in different ways & for various lengths of time were the most successful & influential in history. While Ming China, & the empires of Spain & the Ottoman Turks were "might have beens as far as hyperpowers go." The former do to its isolationism, & the latter two do to their varying degrees of intolerance, the suppression of knowledge, & lack of a home grown innovative & commercial class. Both of these constantly had to hire foreigner merchants & bankers to keep their economies going. They also often had to hire foreigners to help build their navies since their own technology was often stagnant. The irony that the Jews & Arabs who were brutally expelled from Spain, would eventually reinvigorate the Ottomans. Who would later foil Spain's aspirations of conquering both North africa & the middle east was a true case of "reaping what you sowed."


As for the USA, our success has been our unrivalled ability to attract & retain enterprising immigrants & our ability to assimilate people from various races & nationalities into being Americans. But, today , concerns about uncontrolled illegal immigration & job outsourcing has produced a backlash against our tradition of "cultural openess." She asks has the USA hit a tipping point?" Have we gone overboard with our tolerance & diversity to the point that our national unity & cohesion are falling apart?

Could other rising powers like India, China, or the European Union eventually surpass the USA? As for the former she states. India is far more interested in becoming partners with the USA rather than rivals. Also, despite its recent economic strides it has 17% of the worlds population yet, it produces only 2% of the global GDP. India also has huge internal conflicts between Hindus & Muslims, etc. The interviews on pages 309-10 speaks volumes as to why the USA is so appealing to Indian people.

The EU also has multiple problems to contend with. The EU's tolerance is inwardly based, not outwardly. The EU's growing inability to absorb & assimilate often hostile Muslim immigrants, a rapidly aging & decreasing population, slow economic growth, & the most talented sectors of their popultion wishing to emigrate to the USA makes it unlikely that it can challenge the USA in the forseeable future.
China, with very rare exceptions has been one of the most xenophobic, misogynistic, & ethnocentric societies in history. In various ways it is the polar opposite of the USA's being a pluralistic immigrant society. China still has a huge cultural gap between north & south, deep levels of corruption, an ever growing gap between the rich & poor, & most of its human capital remains uneducated. With the bulk of the education system itself discouraging innovative thinking. Like India it also has eighty to one hundred million more men than women, {something the author left out}. Intruigingly 85% of Chinese students studying in the USA never return to China.

This is one of the rare serious books of non-narrative history that is thorough without being tedious. It carries its message lightly but convincingly. For its modest length it packs in a huge amount of information and analysis. Chua's thesis that throughout history empires, nice and nasty, tend to succeed most when they assimilate and tolerate the best of their subject peoples is sadly relevant to the modern world. This is a pleasurable and well written tour across five thousand years of human civilization, from ancient Persia to the US today. It is "big" history at its best. Highly recommended.

We all know the Post Office tagline: "Neither snow nor rain not heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." This is well-known as being the USPS' motto (it isn't, actually); it is less well-known that the line is from Herodotus' Histories and describes the messenger system deployed by the Persian Empire. The great Persian Empire had developed institutions and an infrastructure that allowed it to expand and keep control of vast territories in the Fertile Crescent.
Indeed superior infrastructure and institutions is inherent to all the "hyperpowers" which Chua investigates. Rome was able to build roads connecting all of Europe to the city; the Tang empire had a unified writing system that connected its people who spoke differing "dialects" (as Italian and German are different "dialects"); Britain took advantage of both the steamship and the Suez Canal. Each of these empires efficiently deployed the latest technology to develop an institutional infrastructure that united its subjects. Chua does not delve too far into these. Instead she argues that the level of tolerance of other peoples and cultures is what allowed each hyperpower to rise to almost world domination.
Is this tolerance what has made the current American hyperpower? The US has developed like the other hyperpowers, in the fact that it uses both institutions and infrastructure to create an "empire" based on the technological and ideological points of the day. As early as 1942 American planners saw that the British Empire was not long for this world and that the US should attempt to take its place. However, Imperialism was no longer the way to do it. Instead they developed the institutions and infrastructures that we know today: the UN, Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank, IMF and WTO), NATO, etc. It is only after the straying from "soft empire" to a hard one that the US began to really be viewed as a dangerous pariah. Alas, the sun may be setting on America's Day of Empire.
However, it is possible that a contributing factor is the level of tolerance. Does the United States ignoring the interests of the UN's Parliament of Man qualify as intolerance? Is the new rejection of anything not Christian part of the tipping point in descending of American hyperpower? These are possible. While I am not sold on Chua's thesis, but she does make it plausible and, therefore, I do not entirely reject either. I would like to see work done on institutions of the specific empires she covers and compare this to Chua's thesis.
Chua's book is well researched. It is also a good read. I do not find it to be a must read, but it is worth picking up. 3 and a half stars.

Amy Chua provides a basic look a the future of the USA. Unfortunately, the focus on nation-building is giving way to a world view of three or four essential regions of the world. The question is can we, as a nation, begin to think regionally and world side. This question, together with the recognition that we are all in this together, we must ask: is Amy's "toleration" thesis a negative or positive look at working together for posterity's future?

Ms Chua gives an amazing wealth of history and information in an easy, flowing style,with humor and understatement. This book was fascinating. There is some question whether or not her thesis of tolerance is actually proven. I think that she made her point, but others could argue reasonably to the contrary. This simply makes the book all the more enjoyable. Well done, Ms Chua! Who said that lawyers cannot write well!
[[ASIN:0385512848 Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall]