In chapter one, Gray groups together thinkers such as John Locke and Karl Marx on the basis of striving for an EnlightenmentUtopia in which "a diversity of cultures ... [is] a stage to a universal civilization." Specific efforts to impose a "universal civilization" included Victorian-era England, the Soviet Union and, currently, the United States as "the last great power to base its policies on this enlightenment thesis", such as with the Washington Consensus.[2]