Empires of Trust: How Rome Built--and America Is Building--a New World

An acclaimed historian offers an optimistic view of the future of the United States in the light of Roman history

Maybe the end of the American ascendancy is not upon us. Maybe the U.S. will continue to dominate the world for centuries. Now award-winning historian Thomas Madden delivers an optimistic view of our nation's future.

Madden shows that the power of the ancient Roman republic and the U.S. was built on trust between allies, not the conquest of enemies. The far-reaching implications of this fact are essential reading for anyone who cares about the challenges we face now and in the years ahead.

Packed with stories from Roman history that offer amazingly obvious and explicitly stated parallels to our recent history, Empires of Trust is a narrative pleasure and a hopeful inspiration.

Thomas F. Madden is a professor of history and the director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University. He has written and lectured extensively on the ancient and medieval Mediterranean as well as on the history of Christianity and Islam. Awards for his scholarship include the Medieval Academy of America's Haskins Medal and the Medieval Institute's Otto Grundler Prize. He is a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Medieval Academy of America. His books include Venice: A New History and Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World.