Part I: Terrorism since 9/11
FT writers assess the state of the fight against terrorism, which has overshadowed the world since the September 11 attacks
2000-2009: The decade in review
Resources
The FT looks back at 2009 and the defining moments of the first decade of the 21st century
Birth of a cloud that will never forget
A step-change in computing promises to bring fundamental and irreversible change to many aspects of everyday life – for good or ill
Self-doubt tarnishes Brand America
Comparing the America that began the 21st century with the America of today is to witness a country that has in some ways quite radically altered its view of itself and its relationship to the world
The Optimist
The FT’s own graphic story follows the career progress of financier Candy Dee through the market highs and lows of the last ten years
Related content and features
Interactive
The decade in pictures
A look back at the striking images and memorable events from the past 10 years
The decade in markets
Our interactive graphic shows the performance of the world’s markets in the context of the major global events throughout the last 10 years
Decade of disruption
Part II: Dotcom boom to Dubai debt woes
A closer look at the upheaval in the global economy and public finances and how financial innovation has so far proved a false promise
Part III: The New World Order
The FT assesses the apparent shift in influence from the west to the two emerging powers in Asia
Part IV: Genomics to robots
FT writers consider the transformative powers of bioscience and an information age in which we learnt to talk back
Deals of the decade
Lenovo proves it is a somebody
The group’s unprecedented $1.75bn acquisition of IBM’s PC business remains the only major successful takeover of a foreign brand by a Chinese company
Porsche’s David nearly beat VW’s Goliath
Porsche’s U-turn from would-be owner of Volkswagen to just another brand of Europe’s largest carmaker is one of the more peculiar episodes of the past decade
Steel magnate steered Mittal to success
The €26.9bn acquisition of Arcelor to merge with the Mittal Steel company, has helped Lakshmi Mittal, chairman and main owner of the group, seal his global influence
The $164bn question that stumped AOL
Ten years after AOL unveiled its takeover of Time Warner in a blizzard of superlatives, the ‘deal of the millennium’ has become a byword for top-of-the-market hubris
Comment
Awaiting the start of the 21st century
It is surprising how often a century starts to get into its stride a dozen or so years after its official opening. Let us hope some of the grimmer aspects of this decade are codas to the last century
Rome offers Obama a lesson in limits
Even the greatest world power cannot be everywhere, as the Romans discovered in Scotland and the German forests. Paul Kennedy says the US may learn the same thing in Afghanistan
How the noughties were a hinge of history
The rest of the world was inclined to believe that the west, whatever its faults, knew what it was doing. But then the teacher failed the examination, writes Martin Wolf
The decade the world tilted east
The realisation that the yawning US current account deficit was increasingly being financed by Asian central banks, with the Chinese moving into pole position, was, for me at least, the eureka moment of the decade, writes Niall Ferguson
Still lost in the old Bretton Woods
No amount of shuffling the world pack to include the emerging markets will make any difference unless they, and the rich countries, are willing to face their domestic constituencies
Look back in anger at the spirit of the age
The comment that best captures the past decade must surely be Chuck Prince’s “We’re still dancing”. but the Citigroup chief executive’s folly is repeated in every age of excess, writes John Kay
Global tides that shaped the Noughties
Almost as unanticipated as theocracy on the march has been the summons, from the tomb, of financial governance. But the most paradoxical polarity to have opened up in the past 10 years may not be between anarchy and authority so much as between solipsism and community, writes Simon Schama
Year in Review 2009
Master of risk who did God’s work for Goldman Sachs but won it little love
Lloyd Blankfein, the financier who is the FT Person of the Year, heads Wall Street’s most powerful institution, but he still has to prove himself in the market of public opinion, writes John Gapper
The grim theme linking the year’s main events
The international euphoria that surrounded the election of Obama probably peaked on the very day of his inauguration. It has been downhill all the way since, writes Gideon Rachman
The year in culture quiz
Six bottles of Champagne Bollinger Rosé await the winner
Faith and finance: Of greed and creed
With City of London church attendance on the ascent, more bankers are questioning the basis on which they earn their keep – but is there room for a ‘risk ethic’?
The year in review
FT editor Lionel Barber on the year in which reality bit Barack Obama and which saw the explosive growth of Twitter and other forms of social networking online
An FT Alphaville review of 2009
’Twas the session before Christmas’ - FT Alphaville team’s unique video-take on the year gone by
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