For one brief moment less than a decade ago, the idea of "globalization" was viewed with more promise than peril. At the time, it represented an emerging economic reality: the merging of national markets into a single entity that traders and merchants anywhere could access at anytime. This "24-hour, borderless economy" was being created by the revolution in telecommunications networks and information technologies.

Some, most notably U.S. theorist Francis Fukuyama, saw this new world as a triumph of liberal values. That window of optimism quickly closed. Other analysts preferred to focus on the sparks that flew as previously separate cultures and societies were forced to rub shoulders in a rapidly shrinking world. Strategists such as Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington and journalist Robert Kaplan envisioned a coming clash of civilizations or a descent into anarchy as Western values intruded upon, threatened and sometimes even erased traditional mores and the social order they supported.

Although the pessimists covered a lot of territory in their views -- and usually took offense at being lumped together -- several common features dominated their thinking. Yahya Sadowski, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. summarized their views in a recent book, "The Myth of Global Chaos."