Buy new:
$59.99
FREE delivery: Monday, April 22
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: Books Nooks and Crannies
List Price: $100.00 Details

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
Save: $40.01 (40%)
FREE Returns
Only 8 left in stock - order soon.
$$59.99 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$59.99
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon
Ships from
Amazon
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime
FREE delivery Tuesday, April 23 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 12 hrs 33 mins
Condition: Used: Good
Comment: Used book in good condition. May have some wear to binding, spine, cover, and pages. Some light highlighting markings writing may be present. May have some stickers and or sticker residue present. May be Ex-lib. copy. May NOT include discs, or access code or other supplemental material. Ships directly from Amazon and is eligible for Prime or super saver FREE shipping.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Other Sellers on Amazon
Added
$59.99
& FREE Shipping. Details
Sold by: Front 2 Back Books
Sold by: Front 2 Back Books
(2 ratings)
50% positive over last 12 months
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Shipping rates and Return policy
Added
$73.43
& FREE Shipping. Details
Sold by: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
Only 1 left in stock (more on the way).
Shipping rates and Return policy
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism) Hardcover – December 3, 2003

4.4 out of 5 stars 74

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$59.99","priceAmount":59.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"59","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"ij9au9h9u2v58diaLZrdI31T%2BhK9o78pJturs5%2B2pXkPZir%2F6yJdCEqvxJD8XqJdXAilEShnBOAtEe8dHDfa55FPSXSuRcUyB6lU76vi5oXUeMk%2BY82g%2BEWsLFGECtz%2BqDQWWmZqLE4fQjEcNuZrQ6aXILZr1lmjWtJ%2FyRpfvMhwpeqceat52iUWXYKzS4z%2B","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$24.61","priceAmount":24.61,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"24","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"61","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"ij9au9h9u2v58diaLZrdI31T%2BhK9o78pAtRmXRf0es1eFZuKK851fukS6hcbfa%2F5ClbG7EpA96RYe6nqoty1KjxFTQV9wNnDxKHVnPIYo5WHr6kYU6G0%2FznmktZ3%2BjkUCfwIH8DFIKHsOJkj%2BAN8xRl5wMoqmB2ZyjjKf88WyvLAlN2%2BceGmNmsQRxupcTXc","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Widely reviewed and critically praised, Emmanuel Todd's After the Empire predicts that the United States is forfeiting its superpower status as it moves away from traditional democratic values of egalitarianism and universalism, lives far beyond its means economically, and continues to anger foreign allies and enemies alike with its military and ideological policies. As America's global dominance evaporates, Todd foresees the emergence of a Eurasian alliance bringing together Europe, Russia, Japan, and the Arab-Islamic world.

Todd calmly and straightforwardly takes stock of many negative trends, including America's weakened commitment to the socio-economic integration of African Americans, a bulimic economy that increasingly relies on smoke and mirrors and the goodwill of foreign investors, and a foreign policy that squanders the country's reserves of "soft power" while its militaristic arsonist-fireman behavior is met with increasing resistance. Written by a demographer and historian who foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union, this original and daring book cannot be ignored.

Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more

Frequently bought together

$59.99
Get it as soon as Monday, Apr 22
Only 8 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by Books Nooks and Crannies and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
$27.54
Get it Apr 23 - 24
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Ships from and sold by TextbookRush🍎.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
One of these items ships sooner than the other.
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A bestseller in Europe, this provocative but erratic manifesto stands Euro-anxiety about American hegemony on its head. French demographer Todd (The Final Fall: An Essay on the Decomposition of the Soviet Sphere) cites Paul Kennedy's theory of imperial overstretch and Michael Lind's notion of the American overclass to paint America as a "predatory" but weakening empire, its unilateralism and militarism a sign of frailty, not strength. Misguided free trade policies, he contends, have hollowed out America's industrial base and decimated its working and middle classes, polarizing the country into a society of plutocrats and plebeians. Dependent on imports, America has degenerated into a parasitic, Keynesian consumer-of-last-resort, injecting demand into the world economy while producing nothing of value. To mask its decline, America pursues a foreign policy of "theatrical micromilitarism," picking fights with helpless Third World countries like Iraq to convince the world's real power centers-Europe, Japan and Russia-of its military prowess and validate its spurious image as global policeman. Written in a witty polemical style, Todd's grand but cursory arguments range across economics, military history and geopolitics in ways that might make specialists cringe. Particularly reductionist is his demographic and anthropological view of political science, in which birth and literacy rates and peasant family structures are virtually the sole determinants of a society's politics (but, it should be noted, he used declining birth rates in the Soviet Union to predict its downfall). Todd's eccentric views-on the American trade deficit, the racial attitudes of "the Anglo-Saxon mind," the prevalence of marriages between cousins in Islamic countries, the "castrating" feminism of American women-pull in too many directions to be classified as right or left. His characterization of the United States may hold more than a grain of truth, but some readers might bristle before they see it.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Todd, a researcher at the French National Institute for Demographic Studies, has authored numerous books, one of which (The Final Fall, 1979) predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union well before it came to pass. Now he has written what may be the most important work since Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man (1992), positing that the U.S., despite its apparent position as the unipolar power of the planet, is overextended--our trade deficit is currently $500 billion per year, which means that the rest of the world is financing our consumerism. Todd is above all a demographer, and he bases much of his opinion on statistical elements--declining birth rates in the Soviet Union first cued him in to the country's approaching doom. So he notes some disturbing American phenomena, such as rising stratification based on educational credentials, and the "obsolescence of unreformable political institutions." In the end, he believes the U.S. should return to its nineteenth-century civilian, republican roots, and that Europe should follow that impulse. Already a best-seller in Europe, this book is destined to be much talked about and analyzed. Allen Weakland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 023113102X
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Columbia University Press; First Edition (December 3, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780231131025
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0231131025
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.92 x 0.98 x 8.52 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 74

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Emmanuel Todd
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
74 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2004
A book about the "American Empire" that is refreshingly different from any other I've read or read about. M. Todd is a Frenchman educated at Cambridge University, with an American grandfather, a background and training that gives him an unusual perspective, at least for an American reader such as myself. More important, he published a book in 1976 that predicted the collapse of the Soviet System, a prediction that demands he be taken seriously. He relies heavily on demographic and economic statistics in his analysis, and to some extent differences in family structure in different countries. For example, he notes that while white infant mortality in the US decreased from 1997 to 1999, black infant mortality increased. Even though the changes were small, he regards them as confirming the failure of racial integration in the US. Is he right? I can't pretend to say. But it is a perspective I've never seen before, one with some plausibility. This is just one example; he ranges over many issues. Some of his assertions seem outrageous, such as his claim that the US is militarily weak, but he backs them up with facts and argument. The book sparkles with original ideas. Whether he is right or wrong in his claims, his facts are worth knowing and his arguments are worth thinking about.

****

Addendum in 2007: M. Todd's book looks better and better. As of 2007, the U.S. has been unable to win in Afghanistan, after almost six years of war, and unable to win in Iraq, after more than four years of war. M. Todd's claim that the U.S. is militarily weak no longer looks outrageous. A strong military wins wars. Maybe M. Todd will turn out to be prescient in other respects, as he was about the death of the Soviet Union.

A few other people predicted the Soviet collapse, but conventional opinion ignored them, regarding them as a near-lunatic fringe. The earliest mainstream prediction I know of that predicted the collapse was Brzezinski's Grand Failure, published in 1989. M. Todd correctly foresaw the future when general opinion was overwhelmingly against him. That's not easy, and it makes me think he might be right again.
36 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2004
This book has been a best seller in Europe and is only recently available in English. I heard about it from a politically astute friend in Germany.
Emmanuel Todd, who is French, offers a fascinating perspective on world political trends. The United States is the focus of the book but the book also deals with several other countries and regions.
One of Todd's theories is that the United States can't succeed as an empire because it doesn't have the productivity to do so. Other developed areas of the world that have been dependent on the United States and have supported the U.S. with investment dollars will soon discover that they no longer need us.
Todd believes the theocracies we see in many Muslim nations are only a temporary phenomenon that will be replaced by democracy in this century. He uses information on literacy and birth rates to argue that this conversion is already underway.
Todd has some interesting ideas about the relationship between family structures and political systems. He suggests that democracy will take a number of forms, depending on the culture of the country.
Todd's credentials include a book he wrote in 1976 predicting the fall of the Soviet empire.
Even is his ideas are wrong, they are interesting and provocative.
29 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2008
Todd offers valid analysis and provides sound arguments in this book. While one cannot deny that some thoughts expressed are clearly of an ideological nature, it pays to remember how emotional this topic can get - just read some of the reviews about this title.

I think this book asks the right questions and provides arguments that are worth thinking through. What is the US's role in the world, how do American leaders vs. the American public perceive this role, and why? And why does that matter? Furthermore, Todd's explanation of the divide that is going through American society based on its drifting away from universalism has given me a rational handle on things that go on around me. I grew up in Europe and have lived in the US for most of my adult life.

If one is willing to take an objective look at this topic and Todd's arguments, a lot of them make sense and turn out to be helpful. However, if someone reads this book in order to be proven right about his or her own opinions about this emotional topic, buying this book will be a waste of money.
8 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2006
Todd's book could not have been written by an American. Todd, a French demographer, applies his demographic skills to a study of the last remaining superpower. He adds commentary from a Euro-perspective as well. Other reviewers may quibble about details but in doing so they lose the big picture. After The Empire is no anti-Yankee screed. It is an insightful study of the current state of America -- as seen from overseas. As such it is an eye-opener. I lived in Europe for a number of years, and when looking at my country and my language from the outside, I was able to see a whole new perspective. Todd's book provides such a perspective on American power. It definitely has a certain pride-cometh-before-a-fall quality, and neocons especially would do well to read what Lind has to say.
9 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2007
This book bored the living daylight out of me for better parts of it, but it has some amazing insights. At the end, I thought it was well worth reading. Basically, he wrote same things as Chalmers Johnson, just a couple of years before him. It's also interesting to see how Europeans (in this case a Frenchman) see the USA. This book is definitely a 'political junkie' type read, so if you are one, go read it.
2 people found this helpful
Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
Yaz Yazoo
5.0 out of 5 stars As it described
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 29, 2023
The book came in a good condition.
Denis Rancourt
5.0 out of 5 stars As brilliant as brilliant gets
Reviewed in Canada on February 14, 2020
Todd is the greatest living public intellectual, based on the bredth and depth of his work. This book is as valuable today as it was in 2002. This is Chomsky in his prime, but always in his prime. Geopolitics. The English translation is good, but not as brilliant as the content. The book is also full of generally unknown facts, which are critically relevant to understanding forces and motives.
2 people found this helpful
Report
峯畑 通
4.0 out of 5 stars 流石書評に上るだけのことがある
Reviewed in Japan on February 27, 2013
読書会(45年継続)の会員の紹介;幅広い作品をン読んでます。
Poth
5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking. But not a book for Americans.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 16, 2014
Well well, a man whose views are very close to mine. A good analysis of the introversion, arrogance and stupidity of America. But much more measured and objective than I am. Well researched. A European view (Todd is French, but the translation is excellent) that Americans could never relate to. I think, in a nutshell, Todd's overall conclusion is that Americans are so isolated from the real world that they can't see other people as human beings. And that would indeed account for quite a bit of America's behaviour.
6 people found this helpful
Report
Domi
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 12, 2016
I ll tell as soon as I read it !!