Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors

by Charles S. Maier

Contemporary America, with its unparalleled armaments and ambition, seems to many commentators a new empire. Others angrily reject the designation. What stakes would being an empire have for our identity at home and our role abroad? A preeminent American historian addresses these issues in light of the history of empires since antiquity. This elegantly written book examines the structure and impact of these mega-states and asks whether the United States shares their traits and behavior. Eschewing the standard focus on current U.S. foreign policy and the recent spate of pro- and anti-empire polemics, Charles S. Maier uses comparative history to test the relevance of a concept often invoked but not always understood. Marshaling a remarkable array of evidence--from Roman, Ottoman, Moghul, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and British experience--Maier outlines the essentials of empire throughout history. He then explores the exercise of U.S. power in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, carefully analyzing its economic and strategic sources and the nation's relationship to predecessors and rivals. To inquire about empire is to ask what the United States has become as a result of its wealth, inventiveness, and ambitions. It is to confront lofty national aspirations with the realities of the violence that often attends imperial politics and thus to question both the costs and the opportunities of the current U.S. global ascendancy. With learning, dispassion, and clarity, Among Empires offers bold comparisons and an original account of American power. It confirms that the issue of empire must be a concern of every citizen.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American, American History, The United States Of America

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

A specialist in European and international history, Charles S. Maier is the Leverett Saltonstall Research Professor of History at Harvard University.

Reviews

[Samir Salifou · Rating 2 out of 5]

In Among Empires: American Ascendancy and It’s Predecessors, Charles S. Maier develops a thought provoking thesis about America’s rise to empire. He conducts a qualitative analysis, using historical perspective, in order to do a comparative analysis between empires throughout human history. He never explicitly comes to the conclusion that America is an empire but analyzes the different forms of American power in order to come to make his argument. Though I thought his argument was very convincing, I think his analysis suffers from omitted variable bias.
The author, Charles S. Maier, breaks his argument about America’s empirical power into three sections in his book: the first deals with American military power and its massive expansion during the Cold War; the second has to do with American economic diffusion and hegemony; the third deals with American soft power (such as culture and norms). Maier takes his time in each section to make his point that the U.S. is ostensibly an empire that is still on the rise. He frequently compares the ascendance of American power to previous empires, but tends to focus on the parallels between Rome and the United States. The fact that Rome started as a Republic and than evolved into an empire seems to fit his thesis.
Though I think that his scholarship is very thorough, I feel that in making his case he omits other factors that almost beg to be explored. This is exemplified when Maier discusses the Americas transition to an economic hegemon. He dismisses the effects of the Mundell-Fleming Trilemma, and the alternate reasons that have been argued such as the need for America to have an Independent Monetary Policy due to increased social services. Ultimately, this book was very interesting, and gives me a desire to explore this subject further in order to have both sides of this argument.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting at times, but it suffered from a lack of clarity and readability. I would love to say what the thesis is, but I couldn't really figure it out. This is sort of one of those books that meanders rather than argues, exploring issues without presenting a clear argument. One of its most interesting claims was that there's an important difference between having an empire and being an empire. Great Britain, France, and the United States had empires in that they had non-contiguous territory that they politically controlled. The overseas empire could collapse and the state would remain intact. Russia, Rome, and others were an empire in that the territory they controlled was contiguous and far more politically integrated into the metropole. I didn't know if this should be understood as a mainly geographical or ideological concept, but I thought it was interesting.

So is America an empire? According to Maier, yes (I think), but you have to be specific on what that means. Maier treats the US as both an empire of consent and coercion depending upon the time period and context. His most interesting claim is that the US went form being an empire of production (the industrial giant of the world) to an empire of consumption (the technological hub of the world and the main purchaser of mass produced goods). This is a useful way to think of US political economy in the 20th century. Overall, however, this book just wandered too much to be all that compelling, and its prose was too turgid. Think mid-20th century intellectuals like Galbraith. There are much more clearly argued and useful books on American empire, including works by Bacevich, Kinzer, and Ferguson.

[Red Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to read this book and review notes after also reading Ferguson's book on the American Empire.

Maier defines empire as a ruling power who, "creates a network of allied elites in regions abroad who accept subordination in return for security of their position."

He takes on some tough questions, such as holding that if there is to be an empire, he'd rather it was the U.S. than anyone else, and also maintaining that we really aren't much of an empire if we keep giving back land we've fought for and won. He also questions whether the U.S. is "exploiting" natural resources if we provide the technology and knowledge to find and extract the resources from a country that could not do so, and share the profits with them.

He examines Nye's soft power prescription, noting that "soft power evaporates if there is no hard power in reserve."

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-read of a book assigned in college. Describes features of historical empires - expansion/conquest, core/periphery, co-option of local elites, frontier zones, exporting of violence. Looking at U.S. history post-WWII, the author talks about (among other things) nuclear weapons, the partition of Germany, the transitioning of the global monetary system to dollar reserves, the role of the trade deficit in subsidizing budget deficits spent on military maintenance of imperial ties.

[Rudyard L. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was fun to read for a bit. The author really knows his stuff. However, it got really annoying since I can’t really figure out what the point of it is. He just seems to name drop some cool historic events and call it a chapter. Not very coherent.

[B Doyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting discussion on empires and the U.S.'s potential categorization. While the author provided a foundational framework for defining and assessing empires, I would have liked for the book to have been more rigorous in that regard. It was an interesting narrative approach but not systematic.