A searching study of the British system as an experiment in world order, the nearest the world has come to a world community and international cooperation, held together by social and economic rather than political interests. After careful analysis of the history of the British Empire,- the first phase, in which a mercantilistic policy was stressed, the second, strongly centralized, but with a policy of laissez-faire, the third, with decrease of centralization, the fourth which is still in process of emerging from the war -- he comes to the conclusion that the development of a world community must be encouraged. There must be free movement of ideas, people, goods. That together, America and the British Commonwealth can save the world, where no country can live by itself. A competent job, interesting, intelligent, by the author of Westward the Course, that perceptive study of the new world of Oceania (1942).