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On Empire: AmericaWarand Global Supremacy

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Excellently written, but lacking in content. This 90-page, pocket-size book consists of four essays, which on their own are strong, but because Hobsbawm repeats similar themes and statistics in all four pieces, it becomes slightly redundant. On the other hand, unlike Chalmers Johnson's "Nemesis" (another great book on the topic of empires chock full of fascinating tidbits), "On Empire" takes a fairly even hand in analysing the issues. Overall, it's a fast and enjoyable read that covers a pertinent topic in international affairs today.

After the tragedy of 9/11 the USA got an outpouring of sympathy and support from the citizens and governments of nations all over the world. Seven years later, the USA has achieved virtual pariah status around the world. They hate us now. What happened?

Hobsbawm is an eminent British historian now living in his 10th decade. He has seen the 20th Century unfold. This collection of essays was taken from speeches he has made since 2001. They go a long way toward explaining how the Bush administration squandered the good will once felt toward us.

Bottom line: our aggressive and immoral attacks on other nations poisoned viewpoints around the world. The US is seen as a rogue nation bent on imperial rule and domination of weaker countries.

We are hated now.

To leftists the word "empire" has the negative connotation that once belonged to Rome: imperialistic, expansionist, hegemonic, and slavery centered. Further, the term has come to belong to be used for the exclusive use of the United States. In ON EMPIRE, British Marxist historian Hobsbawm trots out all the old arguments that had been expatiated on by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and other academic Marxists who view the Soviet Union only through its starting premises of Marx but hold the United States to the much differing standard that even a temporary existence of slavery in all its forms is enough to cancel out any other good it might have accomplished, which in any case, Hobsbawm and his ilk never seem to mention. To build an empire, according to Hobsbawm, requires a nation to exploit its own people, to carry out ruthless aggression against neighbors, and to engage in genocide against any population (including its own) that represents a threat to achieve those goals. The preceding sound pretty much what Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao did. And with the exception of Hitler, all were leftist socialists. Hobsbawm falls neatly into the same mindset that afflicts all academic Marxists. That the United States falls into two extremes: on one end is the admitted existence of all sort of social evils (slavery, crime, exploitation, class warfare) and on the other is to extrapolate those evils until they come to characterize the United States with an indelible coating. I have yet to hear of Hobsbawm, Chomsky, or Zinn admit that the United States chose to tear itself apart solely to eliminate those evils that they claim still form its innate nature. I have yet to hear of these three admitting that much of the world of the 18th and 19th centuries engaged in these crimes and far worse and for far longer periods of time than it took the United States to clean up its moral act. The millions of Ukrainians who were starved under Stalin's orders, the millions of Cambodians who were murdered under Pol Pot's orders, and the millions who were crushed under Mao's orders deserve to have their voices heard to counter the vicious blasphemies of Hobsbawm et al.