Empire

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable
Kingdom, Chile and the Nazis, and The Diplomacy of War: The Case of
Korea.

In a mere 135 pages, James Laxer reviews 12 of the world’s empires.
This is a polemical book, an argument that the United States is the
latest of the 12 empires.

Laxer himself would undoubtedly agree that there are better places to
find information on the Egyptian, Roman, Chinese, French, Nazi German,
and British Empires. He uses them only to illustrate points he intends
to make about the United States. Still, for someone who seeks a
five-minute review of the rise, characteristics, and decline of any of
these empires, Laxer’s first chapter serves a purpose.

The U.S. Empire is less formal than its predecessors, says Laxer. Most
of its parts are to some degree sovereign states, and the Stars and
Stripes is not as ubiquitous as the Union Jack, for example, used to be.
The U.S. Empire is nevertheless real. Laxer is not the first scholar to
suggest as much. In 1960, Richard W. Van Alstyne wrote a much longer
book, The Rising American Empire. Laxer’s contribution is to focus on
more recent developments, especially the presidency of George W. Bush
with its record of military buildup, pre-emptive strikes, and
international actions of dubious wisdom and legality. Laxer also reviews
such horrors as the Vietnam War, the CIA’s role in the 1973 Chilean
coup, and Ronald Reagan’s support for the Nicaraguan Contras. A world
map, which identifies U.S. allies and the locations of U.S. military
bases, is helpful for understanding the way the U.S. Empire operates.

Laxer predicts that the U.S. Empire will be as transient as its
predecessors. Americans who supported George W. Bush lack interest in
the outside world and dislike paying taxes. The population of the United
States is smaller than those of such rivals as China and Europe, and
U.S. economic strength is finite. Environmental damage is another
restraining factor. Whether Americans will forever tolerate the military
deaths needed to maintain an empire is unlikely. Recommended.