'After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a consensus emerged - not only in the West but elsewhere - that the magical combination of free markets and democracy would transform the world into a community of moderised, peace-loving nations, and individuals into civic-minded citizens and consumers. Ethnic hatred, religious zealotry and other 'backward' aspects of underdevelopment would be swept away.'In World on Fire, Amy Chua shows that just the opposite has happened. As global markets open, ethnic conflict worsens and democracy in developing nations turns ugly and violent. Examining the actual impact of economic globalisation across the world Chua shows how free markets have concentrated disproportionate, often spectacular wealth in the hands of resented ethnic minorities. These 'market-dominant minorities' - from the Chinese in Aoutheast Asia to the Lebanese in West Africa - invariably become targets of violent hatred.Adding democracy to this volitile mix unleashes suppressed ethnic hatred and brings to power 'ethno-nationalists' governments that pursue aggressive policies of confiscation and revenge. Such a dynamic produced Milosevic, Mugabe and the genocidal Hutu Power leaders in Rwanda. Chua also shows how individual countries may be viewed as 'market-dominant' minorities at the regional or global level, a fact that may help to explain both the Arab-Israeli conflict and the rising tide of anti-American sentiment around the world. America today has become the world's leading market-dominant minority, enjoying wealth and economic power wildly disproportionate to its numbers. This, perhaps more than anything else, accounts for the visceral hatred of Americans expressed in recent acts of terrorism.Chua is not an anti-globalist. But she presciently warns that, far from making the world a better and safer place, democracy and capitalism - at least in the raw, unrestrained form in which they are currently being exported - are intensifying ethnic resentment and global violence, with potentially catastrophic results.