[cjs_ac]

I think the dominance of English comes from the United Kingdom's significant cultural power in the nineteenth century (cf. French's status as the language of diplomacy deriving from France's cultural power in the eighteenth century). The US is just riding on Britain's (England's, really) cultural coattails.

(The US's economic dominance is, at present, unrivalled, however.)

[bratwurst3000]

i dont know anyone who speaks English because of that. all my friends and all people i met do it because US culture stuff like tv music articles. also here in europe its because of USA. Noone speaks british english here. With english we mean US english. also the other reason is work and travell and thats also mostly US english. if britain would speak chinese noone would speak chinese. everyone would speeak us English. Its crazy that people still have a britain centric worldview. that ship sailed 100 years ago and then it became the american century.