Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Some people doubt the existence of superpowers in the post–Cold War era altogether, stating that today's complex global marketplace and the rising interdependency between the world's nations has made the concept of a superpower an idea of the past and that the world is now multipolar. However, while the military dominance of the United States remains unquestioned for now and its international influence has made it an eminent world power, countries such as China, India, Brazil and Russia are inventing new ways to counter American military supremacy such as space and are making great strides in science, literature, soft power and diplomacy." [Wikipedia]
"From mathematics to the predominant Western religion, Christianity, we live in a truly global civilization that was created by people living in the Middle East; Abraham, the Pharaohs, Jesus Christ, Avicenna and Averroes all come from this area. Thus rather than looking at a triumphant West, and a stagnant, fallen Middle East, today's twenty-first century Western world owes everything to its intellectual origins in the Middle East." [Catherwood: The Middle East, p. xix]