American Empire

Abstract

Imperial history—the study of empires rising and falling—is making a comeback, if the recent outpouring of scholarly books on the subject is any indication. America’s current quest to install a system of international law and order in the 21st century—a 'pax Americana'—has rekindled this interest in empires. But so has the emerging framework of analysis within which imperial history is being debated and interpreted. That framework arises from the proposition that the United States is essentially an empire. It may be the most powerful of all time in military and economic terms, but America’s particular exercise of global ascendancy is characteristic of the empires which preceded it—especially Britain’s. Thus, the American empire is better understood when compared with and referenced against the kind of hegemony that empires of the past acquired and were able to exert (Ferguson 2004, p. vii). Though not the first to put this case, British historian Niall Ferguson has mounted it so forthrightly in 'Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire' that the key arguments of his book appear to have become standard points of concurrence or contestation for any subsequent reappraisal of American imperialism.