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com "The United States today is an empire--but a peculiar kind of empire," writes Niall Ferguson. Despite overwhelming military, economic, and cultural dominance, America has had a difficult time imposing its will on other nations, mostly because the country is uncomfortable with imperialism and thus unable to use this power most effectively and decisively. The origin of this attitude and its persistence is a principal theme of this thought-provoking book, including how domestic politics affects foreign policy, whether it is politicians worried about the next election or citizens who "like Social Security more than national security." Ferguson, a British historian, has no objection to an American empire, as long as it is a liberal one actively underwriting the free exchange of goods, labor, and capital. Further, he writes that "empire is more necessary in the twenty-first century than ever before" as a means to "contain epidemics, depose tyrants, end local wars and eradicate terrorist organizations." The sooner America embraces this role and acts on it confidently, the better. Ferguson contrasts this persistent anti-imperialistic urge with the attitude held by the British Empire and suggests that America has much to learn from that model if it is to achieve its stated foreign policy objectives of spreading social freedom, democracy, development, and the free market to the world. He suggests that the US must be willing to send money, civilians, and troops for a sustained period of time to troubled spots if there is to be real change--as in Japan and Germany after World War II--an idea that many American citizens and leaders now find repulsive. Rather than devoting limited resources and striving to get complex jobs done in a rush, Americans must be willing to integrate themselves into a foreign culture until a full Americanization has occurred, he writes. Overall, a trenchant examination of a uniquely American dilemma and its implications for the rest of the world. Just as in his previous book, Empire, he argued that the British Empire had done much good, he now suggests that "many parts of the world would benefit from a period of American rule," as stability and a lack of corruption that could be brought by liberal imperial government would result in...
read more Book Description Niall Ferguson brings his renowned historical and economic depth of field to bear on a bold and sweeping reckoning with America's imperial status and its consequences. to every corner of the world," George W Bush maintains that "America has never been an empire." "We don't seek empires," insists Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. In Colossus he argues that in both military and economic terms America is nothing less than the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. Just like the British Empire a century ago, the United States aspires to globalize free markets, the rule of law, and representative government. Yet Americans shy away from the long-term commitments of manpower and money that are indispensable if rogue regimes and failed states really are to be changed for the better. Ours, he argues, is an empire with an attention deficit disorder, imposing ever more unrealistic timescales on its overseas interventions. Worse, it's an empire in denial-a hyperpower that simply refuses to admit the scale of its global responsibilities. And the negative consequences will be felt at home as well as abroad. In an alarmingly persuasive final chapter Ferguson warns that this chronic myopia also applies to our domestic responsibilities. When overstretch comes, he warns, it will come from within-and it will reveal that more than just the feet of the American colossus is made of clay.
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers. While the outcome is still uncertain, Professor Ferguson paints a bleak picture of America's ability as a liberal empire to "build" democratic governments on very short time frames. He points out that we Americans are good at implementing "regime change" (see the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq), but poorly suited at effective nation-building due to domestic and foreign political pressures to leave places like Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as possible, even if the proper institutions to effectively govern and induce foreign investment are not in place. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in history, economics, and foreign affairs.
Eric J Lyman (see more about me) from Roma, Lazio Italy I find this whole book to be more than a little disturbing. But while it is mostly a forward-looking effort from the sadly puzzling historian and author Niall Ferguson, I find it most frightening when it looks to the past. It's in those parts of his thesis that Mr Ferguson argues, for example, that the US should have dropped as many as 50 atom bombs on China in order to end the Korean War quickly and neatly, and where he opines that the Vietnam War should have been fought even more ruthlessly starting back in the mid-1960s, as a way to snap the North's resolve. It was all enough to compel me to temporarily close Colossus with a scowl and a wrinkled brow to reach for the comfort of a dusty old volume containing he works of Tacitus, the first and second century Roman historian who Mr Ferguson no doubt knows far better than I do. Tacitus, best known for his opinions about the throne's power to corrupt and the scandals and ruined lives its corruption produced, famously wrote about Domitian's reign of terror: "They made a desert and called it victory." Evidently, if Mr Ferguson had his way, the desert would stretch far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. He backed the controversial US war effort in Iraq from its first rumblings, criticizing it only where it has paused to reassess or deny its imperial designs when that time could have been used to forcefully to indiscriminately crush resistance (or anything that appears to be resistance ... He argues for a US foreign policy along the lines of that employed by imperial Britain, endeavoring to win the Middle East's hearts and minds by ruling their pocketbooks and politics. If these dangerous points had been made by almost anyone else, I would have stopped reading after 30 or 40 pages and dismissed the writer as a crackpot. But I grew to know Mr Ferguson through the Pity of War and The House of Rothschild -- not books that swayed me with every argument, but which were full of worthwhile, uncommon, meaty, and complex theories that forced me more than once to dramatically reconsider what I believed. And while last year's troubling effort Empire now seems like a kind of uncomfortable preface to Colossus, it had been easy for me until now to dismiss that book as an aberration. So I returned to Colossus after a short break and finished its 400 pages, sadly shaking my head almost the whole time. Without a doubt, Mr Ferguson is a talented writer with a stunning command of information and historical context. He writes compellingly and with great enthusiasm, more so in Colossus than in his earlier work. But it appears to me to be sorely misdirected here: he fails to convince that the US has the power to develop the kind of empire he describes and, more importantly, he fails to explain why it should even try to do so. I get the idea that without many decades of time to provide context to what he writes about, Mr Ferguson loses almost all of the edge that previously made him stand out among his contemporaries. I don't know what sparked this apparent evolution in Mr Ferguson's interests, but I can only hope that it doesn't get around. Ferguson delights in writing about empires: such as were a hundred years ago and such as he perceives today. His problem is his love for global empire where there is none. What do you think Thomas Jefferson would say to the idea of an American Empire based on the principles of British Empire? Sorry, global power projection does not work by "soft power" as any realist knows. Ferguson works on two wrong premises: "empire" and "soft power".
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