Empire 2.0: A Modest Proposal for a United States of the West by Xavier de C*** (The Terra Nova Series) [Paperback]

Xavier De C. (Author), Joseph Rowe (Translator), Regis Debray (Contributor)

Book Description

Series: The Terra Nova Series | Publication Date: May 4, 2004

Written by fictional character "Xavier de C***" as a plea to an American president, Empire 2.0 is a scorching satire of totalitarianism. In it, the hero, a Frenchman, renounces his citizenship to become an American. This breezy book argues that resistance to America's overwhelming power is futile and that to survive, Europe must allow itself to be annexed by the U.S. Debray's insights into the growing European resentment of American unilateralism could not be more timely.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In post-September 11 literature, [Debray's book] takes pride of place."
- Vianney Delourme, Parutions.com

"Debray denounces, through the character he creates, all those passive pro-Americans who refuse to follow their choice to the end. Those who don't understand that the logic and coherence of their behavior would have to conduct them to become proud citizens of the United States and militant soldiers of the Pax Americana."
- Jean Daniel, Le nouvel observateur

"Those inquisitors, for whom Debray is the 'convenient Anti-American,' will discover here that he is capable of 'thinking the Other,' of developing with convincing forcre the arguments of a philo-American of heart and reason."
- Max Gallo, Le Point

About the Author

Regis Debray graduated from the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris in 1940. He later obtained his PhD in philosophy. His early career was that of a journalist-adventurer. A leftist hereo of the 1960s, his writings attracted the interest of Che Guevara, and he was invited to Cuba by Fidel Castro himself. For the last decade or more, Debray has become known as the leading "mediologist," and an advocate of overcoming the ideological dualism of Right vs. Left.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books (May 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556434952
• ISBN-13: 978-1556434952
• Product Dimensions: 4.9 x 0.5 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,022,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A modestly Swift proposal, June 11, 2004

By 

Thomas J. Cassidy (Arlington, Virginia USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Empire 2.0: A Modest Proposal for a United States of the West by Xavier de C*** (The Terra Nova Series) (Paperback)

By adopting his alter ego of Xavier De C*** for objectivity's sake, veteran journalist Regis Debray becomes a kid in a candy-store in skewering the shortcomings of modern European culture and statesmanship, particularly in his native France. His late fictional friend and colleague has written to Debray in English (so Debray tells us) to diagnose all that is wrong with modern Europe - way too much to detail here - and to prescribe a most unusual cure.

His prescription for massive cultural reform takes the form of calling for a modern-day Edict of Caracalla, citing how the Roman Emperor of that name declared all residents of the Roman Empire not otherwise enslaved or proscribed to be Roman citizens, and thereby expanding the tax base and buying the empire couple of extra centuries. De C***, having recently becoming a U.S. citizen after years in the French secret service, says that the modern Roman emperor lives in the White House. He prescribes that the countries of Europe join in a "United States of the West," as he would deem it, and that France be the first to take this step toward Washington, lest Britain or Germany steal yet another diplomatic march.

Not that it should be a one-way affair. M. De C***, or M. Debray, calls for a more Atlantocentric outlook on Washington's part. But he declares that Europe should provide the incentive by, as it were, going West - a notion guaranteed to cause conniptions in news columns and government chambers all over Europe.

A giveaway, though, to this American reader at any rate, is what the erstwhile new citizen De C***/old European Debray leaves out; namely, the actual legal means of executing this Europe Annexation. No where does he mention that any new Edict of Caracalla would take the form of a European government ratifying the U.S. Constitution. It reflects the European Constitution debate where the few comparisons to the U.S. debate in 1788 were denied and dismissed with a casual wave of the hand - a case of waving the light out of the smoke if ever there was one; the very disease of De C***/Debray's jeremiad.

For the irony-challenged - not all of whom are Yanks - bear in mind that Debray doesn't dream of an actual Europe Annexation into a Greater U.S. He himself has cited this book as a call against the rise of renewed empire for the 21st-century. Still, it's difficult to imagine a more plausible step away from that vision - unless it's for a United States of Earth. We can always leave the United States of the Solar System for the 22nd century.