Daniel Immerwahr

Don't think that you own us.

In the fourth meeting, they just say, okay, we are now on your screw threat standard.

Wow.

And then I think on top of it, you have to see the symbolic humiliation.

You know, it's one thing for the United States to declare independence.

This is the British declaring dependence.

This is the British basically saying that independence

In the realm of objects, which turns out to be a really important economically determinative realm, we're going to take orders from you rather than the other way around.

Totally.

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, just think about World War II from a military perspective.

First of all, it's happening at a moment of enormous technological dynamism.

So the kinds of things that can be produced after the war compared to the kinds that could be produced before are barely recognizable.

Even just the war itself is a time of great invention.

And all of those inventions are going to nudge the globe toward a more united, technologically interdependent configuration.

And then the war accelerates that tremendously.

A single country right at the end of the war

is producing some like 60% of all of the industrial products of the world, is diplomatically dominant.

And it got really lucky.

And you're right.