America's Shadow: An Anatomy of Empire [Paperback]

William V. Spanos (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press; 1 edition (December 6, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081663338X
• ISBN-13: 978-0816633388
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,986,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important critique of American imperialism, August 5, 2000

By 

BL Deuts (Sydney NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America's Shadow: An Anatomy of Empire (Paperback)

Books like this have been a long time coming. This one says things that are fundamentally important. Lack of this kind of political and historical insight during the Vietnam decade was probably one of the main factors that caused the radical movements and people of that time to lose their way in a fairly short time, so that the radical high-tide of the late 1960s was ebbing away by the early- to mid-1970s and never appeared again, except occasionally. If the Vietnam era served as the crucible from which books such as this eventually came, then those years are still generating a compelling and important legacy.

If readers of this book draw only one general conclusion from it, it probably should be an awareness of how vital an adequate political-historical perspective is for the successful framing and prosecution of any radical, revolutionary or 'counter-establishment' political agenda.

The great virtue of this book is to remind people how long-established and deeply entrenched in Western societies is a logic of imperialism and domination with its accompanying rationalisations and 'justifications', and that a new stage or level of that logic has been achieved recently with the end-of-cold-war 'victory' achieved by the West.

It's also a bit unfortunate that only one response to this book has appeared here in more than a year. Potential readers should know that this book really is worth reading and commenting on.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important analysis of an historical mind-set, August 5, 2000

By 

Anthony Wedgewood (Ithaca NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America's Shadow: An Anatomy of Empire (Paperback)

To be more specific than in the previous piece, it could be noted that anyone dedicated to a `counter-hegemonic' project should be aware at the outset how slippery and slithery the discourse of the American political `establishment' has been since it was systematically crystallised and formalised in the latter part of the eighteenth century (most notably with the Declaration of Independence). This discourse relies almost entirely on a series of airy generalities such as life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, opportunity, freedom, democracy, human rights etc etc.

The extent to which this kind of discourse and rhetoric dominates both the public domain and the inner workings of the mind of the American people themselves is fundamentally important for the maintenance of control by a `power elite'. Such a generalised, slippery discourse makes it quite difficult for people to come to grips with the causes, consequences and nature of specific events and policies. For example, if the prevailing, largely automatic popular assumption is that the American political system is at all times dedicated to `life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' etc, it follows automatically that any repressive or authoritarian policies or legislation can't really be repressive or authoritarian at all; they become necessary expedients to resist or overcome the influence of the enemies of life, liberty etc. In effect, the American political class wrote itself a blank cheque with the expansive, high-minded rhetoric they wrote into the Declaration of Independence, a cheque which they are still able to draw against.

The American people got at least two early warnings about how limited and constrained their rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness could be, at least when times were difficult. One was the Constitution agreed to at Philadelphia in 1787. This caused such popular discontent that ten amendments had to be added shortly after (the `Bill of Rights'), to calm things down. Then in 1798 the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed. 1798 happened to be a fairly radical year (the Irish uprising, Napoleon in Egypt). Reading the language of the Sedition Act, it is impossible not to notice how English it sounds. These acts were politically similar to the English `Orders-in-Council' of 1792, by means of which the domestic area was made subject to tight discipline for the forthcoming assault on revolutionary France. The politics of the Alien and Sedition Acts confirmed the new American nation as essentially English. The War of Independence therefore can't be thought of as a revolution. What it was was a means to reverse positions with England; instead of England being dominant and America subordinate, the colonies enabled themselves to become the dominant power at a later time. More than a century later as it turned out - around the time of what Christopher Hitchens called `the hinge year' of 1898. Around this time it became clear to the English political class that they would have to resign themselves to playing `second fiddle' to the rising power of the USA. When that stage was reached, each felt free to engage in gratuitous, aggressive wars i.e. wars for which there was absolutely no military necessity (the Spanish-American War and the Boer War). From then on, World War I probably became inevitable.

This perhaps helps to flesh out some of the nineteenth century history which is perhaps not explicitly dealt with in Spanos' book, but which serves as the background which makes Spanos' outline urgent and compelling; the background which, as Spanos explains, Herman Melville was trying to explicate for the American people.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars difficult but superb exploration; beats hardt-negri's Empire, June 29, 2001

By 

D. Vukovich - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: America's Shadow: An Anatomy of Empire (Paperback)

This is an excellent exploration and critique (in the real sense of that word) of the epistemology and discourse of empire. Persuasively argues for the "family resemblance" b/w romanesque notions and practice of empire/imperialism, the war on Vietnam, and current mantras about democracy and freedom. Compares very favorably to the much ballyhoo'd hardt-negri tome on "Empire". Not an easy read, of course, but the complexity of the problem Spanos addresses warrants it.