The international discourse is most recently focused on some negative outgrowths of world economy, especially after the Seattle Round (December 1999) and its unexpected uprising of protests. The researches of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies (University of Genoa), in cooperation with scholars from Europe, Canada and the United States, offer in this collection of essays a multinational contribution which is part of their work in progress on the multifaceted issue of the contemporary "global village". The book features some optimistic outcomes, and some worries about what the new millennium will not achieve, despite the common and transnational efforts, that is to say a fair re-distribution of resources to reach what R.W. Fogel defines "a post-modern equality", based on values as well as on material wealth. In sum, the essayists wonder if some of the "hidden promises" of globalization will develop in a better new century.