Customer Reviews

Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors

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This book has a poses a timely question at the outset -- is America an empire, like the old Roman or British Empires, for example? And what does it mean to be an empire anyway? The author in his brief forward previews an historical essay that will examine the role of territorial frontiers, ethnic groups, and the military in Empires, among other things.

What follows is not a tight essay, but 300 pages of stream of consciousness ruminations. Names and ideas are sprayed with a firehose across these all-too-copious pages. The author is impressed with the range and breadth of his erudition, and he wants us to be impressed too. The Mansabars of the Mughals and their jagirs are compared to the Catholic cantons of the Engadine, and the Chingassid conquests. And so on. The book is such a dizzying maze of comparisons and analogies -- some enlightening, some pointless - interspersed with political science jargon ("We cannot really understand the structural ordering of domestic and international politics apart from each other" - who's to argue with that?), that is it very difficult to pick up the book and discern where the argumentation is leading.

The arbitrariness with which things are turned into principles can awaken impatience and boredom. "As with all real-life historical experiences, American ascendancy was partially a contingent outcome." (p.146) "As in all imperial systems, the drawing and enforcement of boundaries during the cold war was critical to politics at the center." (p.147) These generalities are so broad that they do not stir thought, but rather smother the reader in a down comforter of words. "If they last for a generation or more, imperial systems are scalar, like fractals or, more precisely, Mandelbrot patterns." (p.146) Indeed. The final word on that subject.

The author is deeply cultured, and we are reminded of that frequently. He has seen Michael Frayn's "witty play" Noises Off. The play sets off in his mind analogies and intellectual connections that are too delicious to be repressed. If we, he writes, "substitute for the lovers' quarrels in Michael Frayn's theatrical mayhem discrete CIA interventions, training in interrogation, fomented coups, and assassinations...one has a model of how American covert policies play abroad." Well, that clears it up!

Along with the analogy spillage, there is an irritating tendency to affect pop culture comparisons a la Tom Friedman of the New York Times. Napoleon's famous saying that every French soldier has a marshal's baton in his knapsack, is for Maier, "hoop dreams for the Grande Armee." Arggh!

Finally, given that Harvard University Press published this tome, there were a surprising number of misspellings and errors. As examples of American soft power, the author cites the "influence garnered over the years by Jackson Pollock, Van Cliburn, Bruce Springsteen, McKenzie, and MacDonald's." McKenzie? The first McKenzie I found on Google was an escort agency in Leeds.... One assumes he means McKinsey, the management consulting company. MacDonald's? Does he mean the venerable hamburger purveyor McDonald's? Anyway, the alliteration works. Perhaps the author does not often dine at "MacDonald's," but rather more often among the elites at "frequent convocations of opinion leaders at prestigious conferences, often abroad as at Ditchley or Konigswinter." Brace yourselves, elites at Ditchley and Konigswinter.

Professor Maier's "Among Empires" may be the most careful and balanced look yet at the similarities between late 20th and early 21st century America and the heights of both the Roman and British empires. Unlike his fellow Harvard colleague Niall Ferguson's "The Roman Predicament" (which I also favorably reviewed), Maier does not assume American imperialism, but rather "compares some of the recurring elements of empires and asks to what extent the United States shares these attributes and what are some of the possible consequences for our current political choices."

Maier looks at these possible consequences and political choices both abroad and at home, arguing that the transnational structure of empire both depends on and consolidates "social cleavages throughout its domain," which seems to define the operative political mode in the U.S.

Whether or not the growing American hegemony benefits more than simply the powerful and well-connected, or even the citizens at home, Maier adduces many economic criteria, but the damage to cultures, ethnic identities, and values other than consumerism must be balanced against the potential for greater, though not always equitable, economic prosperity. If we are to continue the spread of American dominance, then discussions like these must be part of the public dialogue, because individual citizens can no longer simply ignore the rest of the world when making political choices. We have already seen the consequences of such complacency.

The latest book by Charles S. Maier is an interesting overview on the life of empire. The best part of it can be connected with the theoretical evaluation of the empire, especially regarding how the empire treats its borders.
However, after the theoretical part one cannot escape the impression that the books turns too detailed. It is doubtful whether the long discussions about the US foreign policy during the Cold War could help to understand the essence of empire. And Maier delicately avoids answering to the question whether US is empire or not. And sometimes the text may be difficult for non-American (I'm Estonian).
Still, the book can be recommended to the readers who are familiar with issues of the international relations and contemporary history. For the beginners the book may be too difficult.

With the demise of the former Soviet Union in 1991-92 and the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq in the post- 9/11 period there has been an inordinate among of ink spilled in academic circles over the question of whether the United States has become the latest empire. In fact, this question has created something of a cottage industry. Professor Maier's book is a contribution, and not the worst, to this controversy. Militants of this generation who understand what is wrong with the drift of American society must confront the question of the imperialistic nature of the United States head-on. For my generation, the generation of 68, the imperialistic nature of the United States was a given. The question then really centered on what to do about it. For a variety of reasons we were not successful in taming the monster. Each generation must come to an understanding of the nature of imperialist society in its own way. And fight it. Thus, this book is a good place to start to understand that question.

A lot of the current controversy in academic circles (government and military circles have no such difficulties) about whether there is an American Empire gets tangled up in comparisons with past empires. True, the American Empire does not look like previous empires. The real problem is trying to pigeonhole the contours of empire based on past experiences. As if the builders of each empire doe not learn something from the mistakes of previous empires. Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin long ago analyzed the basis contours of modern imperialism in his seminal work Imperialism- The Highest Stage of Capitalism. That outline, although in need of updating to reflect various, mainly technological, in the global capitalist structure remains an important document for militants today. By his or virtually any other definition the United States gets the nod.

But let's get down to brass tasks. Hell, the American Empire, is the mightiest military machine the world has ever known defending a nationally-based global economic infrastructure. Previous empires, like the Roman and British, are punk bush league operations in comparison. Academics can afford to have an agnostic view about whether an empire exists or the effects of imperial power. However, when one's door is kicked in by a foreign, heavily armed soldier in some god forsaken village in Iraq or Vietnam, or your city is flattened in order to `save' it a ready definition of imperialism comes to mind. And a good one.

One of the issues that cloud the question of the American Empire is that there is no readily apparent imperialist ideology. In fact, it is argued, for historical reasons, that there is some kind of popular anti-imperialist ideology in America that has always countered the trend toward empire. I take exception to that notion. While there has always been a section of the chattering classes that has held this position it has never really taken popular root. What is really the dominating popular theme is more like-don't tread on me. That is a very different proposition. And it can be seen most unequivocally when a war, any war, comes along and virtually everyone- from the groves of academia to the local barroom- gets on board. Then the imperialist fist is bared for all to see.

With that caveat, this writer recommends this book. Agnostism on the question of empire in acceptable in the academy. It is the nature of such an institution-unless that heavily-armed soldier mentioned about comes kicking down those doors.

Charles Maier manages to create a book that pushes the reader to think in ways might not have before. His writing style is both engaging and brilliant. No other book I've read on the subject matches up. A must read for anyone interested in History.

Let us define empire. On second thought let us just acknowledge that 'we know it when we see it' like obscenity. Therefore anything can be an empire. Therefore why be original and let us call America an empire. This is the message of this book. Rather than trying to historically find an example of a country that dominated a region the way America is dominant, without colonies, without territory, but through money and a very powerful army, this book just decides to pretend that there is a comparison between Rome, England and the United States. But there is little if any commonality. The truth is that given a good enough study one might have been able to find a parrallel example of a country that had immense power but projected it in rare instances and never expanded. Rome expanded until she could no longer expand. England basically did the same to some extent. However America is different, not only does she had very different values that mitigate against colonization and empire, but she also simply is not interested in taking over territory and subjugating peoples.

Old empires forced their will upon others, destroying and enslaving. This is not the case today. This book is basically sheer unoriginal thoughts packaged together to make people think that 'evil' America is dominating the world. The 'American Empire' is said to have existed since 1990 and if this is even the case then it is projected to last for less a period of time than any previous empire, for already it is positionted to be overtaken by the EU and China. So where is the hard research here, where is there any one thought here that is original or even thought through in terms of historical analysis. This is just hyperbole.

Seth J. Frantzman

Unfortunately as the subject holds great importance, this tome is an example of the tedium typical of academic writing. A subject of monumental signifance is treated withe the dullness of an old and dusty library stack. Will serve as a perfect soporific. Sad and sorry.