Colossus: The Price of America's Empire
- Book Review,
by Niall Ferguson
Amazon.com
"The United States today is an empire—but a peculiar kind of empire," writes Niall Ferguson. Despite overwhelming military, economic, and cultural dominance, America has had a difficult time imposing its will on other nations, mostly because the country is uncomfortable with imperialism and thus unable to use this power most effectively and decisively. The origin of this attitude and its persistence is a principal theme of this thought-provoking book, including how domestic politics affects foreign policy, whether it is politicians worried about the next election or citizens who "like Social Security more than national security." Ferguson, a British historian, has no objection to an American empire, as long as it is a liberal one actively underwriting the free exchange of goods, labor, and capital. Further, he writes that "empire is more necessary in the twenty-first century than ever before" as a means to "contain epidemics, depose tyrants, end local wars and eradicate terrorist organizations." The sooner America embraces this role and acts on it confidently, the better. Ferguson contrasts this persistent anti-imperialistic urge with the attitude held by the British Empire and suggests that America has much to learn from that model if it is to achieve its stated foreign policy objectives of spreading social freedom, democracy, development, and the free market to the world. He suggests that the U.S. must be willing to send money, civilians, and troops for a sustained period of time to troubled spots if there is to be real change—as in Japan and Germany after World War II--an idea that many American citizens and leaders now find repulsive. Rather than devoting limited resources and striving to get complex jobs done in a rush, Americans must be willing to integrate themselves into a foreign culture until a full Americanization has occurred, he writes. Overall, a trenchant examination of a uniquely American dilemma and its implications for the rest of the world. --Shawn Carkonen
From Publishers Weekly
Criticism of the U.S. government's imperialist tendencies has become nearly ubiquitous since the invasion of Iraq began nearly a year ago, but Ferguson would like America to embrace its imperial character. Just as in his previous book, Empire, he argued that the British Empire had done much good, he now suggests that "many parts of the world would benefit from a period of American rule," as stability and a lack of corruption that could be brought by liberal imperial government would result in capital investment and growth. Similarly, he says, the British Empire acted as "an engine for the integration of international capital markets." The problems nations like India faced after the British left, he continues, could have been ameliorated if the colonization had been more comprehensive, more securely establishing the types of institutions that foster long-term prosperity. The primary shortcoming of America's approach to empire, Ferguson believes, is that it prefers in-and-out military flourishes to staying in for the long haul. His criticism of Americans as a people who "like social security more than they like national security" and refuse to confront impending economic disaster are withering, but he also has sharp comments for those who imagine a unified Europe rising up to confront America and for the way France tried to block the Iraqi invasion. The erudite and often statistical argument has occasional flashes of wit and may compel liberals to rethink their opposition to intervention, even as it castigates conservatives for their lackluster commitment to nation building. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
The war in Iraq flickers between the lines of Niall Ferguson's new book about America's role as imperial power in the 21st century. The book was commissioned at the flood tide of neoconservative enthusiasm for American empire; it is now appearing at an ebb of that fervor -- at a moment when the neocons' idealistic strategy of transformation has collided with the bitter realities of Iraq. In Colossus, Ferguson manages to be on both sides of the bet, intellectually. He wants America to embark on a new civilizing mission in the Middle East and around the world; but he doesn't really think we have the stuff to succeed as empire-builders. Ferguson's earlier books won him a reputation as a bright and iconoclastic young historian. His best-known book, The Pity of War, managed to say something new about one of the most carefully studied topics of modern history -- the origins and consequences of World War I. Ferguson argued that the war was a British blunder. Had the British better accommodated German ambitions for European dominance, they could have prevented the Russian Revolution, saved their empire and avoided the rise of Nazism -- not to mention saving the millions of lives that were wasted in the trenches. Ferguson makes an equally provocative argument in Colossus. America is already an empire, he argues, but one that is "in denial" and refuses to accept the political and moral responsibilities that come with global power. This failure troubles Ferguson, who believes that without the ordering force of empire, the world will be fragmented and dangerous as never before. "I am fundamentally in favor of empire," he writes. "Indeed, I believe that empire is more necessary in the twenty-first century than ever before." Liberal imperialism, he argues, is the necessary political-military complement to economic globalization. Ferguson's America was made for empire. Its founding fathers had an imperial self-confidence, and the new nation relentlessly extended its borders until it dominated the North American continent. It became a sea power and conquered what amounted to overseas colonies -- all the while insisting it was different from the European powers from which it had sprung. Ferguson quotes Herman Melville in a mid-19th century proclamation of national identity that would resonate in today's White House: "We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people, the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of liberties of the world." For all America's power and sense of manifest destiny, the nation never developed what Ferguson regards as a mature appreciation of its proper role in the world. He shares Walter Lippmann's diagnosis: "We continue to think of ourselves as a kind of great, peaceful Switzerland, whereas we are in fact a great, expanding world power. . . . Our imperialism is more or less unconscious." Failing to embrace the reality of its power, America often failed in its global interventions. The Korean War showed "the remarkable self-limiting character of the American republic," Ferguson writes. In Vietnam, America preferred "the irresponsibilities of weakness" to the responsibilities of power. The aversion to using American power deepened in the Clinton years, when Ferguson notes that the chance of an American serviceman being killed in action was one in 160,000. America had power but not the will to use it. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the war that was going to banish that reticence at last. The war's proponents idealized -- and even romanticized -- the use of military power, as in Robert Kagan's famous contrast of sanguinary Americans from Mars and wary Europeans from Venus. But rather than validating the neoconservative vision, Iraq, a year on, has discredited it. For all America's brilliant show of arms, it seems likely to be another instance of Ferguson's paradox of a mighty America that miscalibrates its attempts to project that power. Though his book was finished before any final evaluation of the Iraq war was possible, Ferguson conveys the sense that it will turn out badly. America disappoints Ferguson because it is not 19th-century Britain. He enumerates the virtues of British imperialism with the enthusiasm of a Victorian schoolboy: Imperial Britain generously exported capital to needy nations of the world; it maintained open markets that allowed the colonies to sell their goods and improve their living standards; it administered the empire with its best and brightest (by Ferguson's account, 75 percent of the Indian civil servants in the 1830s had attended either Oxford or Cambridge). Ferguson blames three American "deficits" that prevent it from emulating Britain's liberal empire. The first of these is economic: America is a spendthrift superpower, which since the mid-1980s has needed to import capital from abroad to fund its trade and fiscal deficits. The second is manpower; in his view, America simply doesn't have enough troops or diplomats to police an unruly world. Worst of all, says Ferguson, is America's attention deficit. The nation lacks the staying power to see through its foreign adventures. Ferguson's book reads more like a long essay than a systematic work of history; it covers a wide swath of intellectual territory, but thinly. The book was written to accompany a British television series, and it has a fade-in, fade-out jumpiness that works better on the screen than on the printed page. The core argument of the book -- that the world needs an American empire that Americans are unable to provide -- is provocative but not convincing. For me, the book blurs the choices facing the United States by comparing it to Ferguson's idealized version of imperial Britain. We Americans actually spend too much time already wishing we were Britain. The CIA wonders why it can't spy like MI6; every president fixes on the resolute Winston Churchill as a secret role model. In crisis, we hear the voice of Margaret Thatcher whispering, "Don't go wobbly." The challenge for the United States, especially after our reversals in Iraq, is to model American power to fit the real strengths and limitations of our culture and political experience. The most intriguing passage in Ferguson's book is his discussion of an imperialism that would be an appropriate fit with globalization. I suspect he's wrong in thinking the answers can be found in a centuries-old British tradition. We haven't the stuff for that, as Ferguson says, but we may have the stuff for something else that will suit the world far better. We will surely fail as a modern-day version of Gladstone's Britain, but we may yet succeed as America. Reviewed by David IgnatiusCopyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Ferguson believes that empires are inherently good things. Colossus offers a provocative diatribe against America’s underutilized power, self-absorption, and refusal to embrace a crucial global role. In the process, he analyzes the interaction between domestic and foreign policy, the roots of empires, the fit between globalization and imperialism, and America’s many challenges, including funding the war on terror. Generally, Ferguson is balanced, readable, informative—and didactic. Critics mostly disagree about the thesis. Some buy it; others, like The Washington Post, question Ferguson’s constant comparisons to a romanticized British Empire. Still, Colossus will get you thinking about American expansion, responsibility, and yes, perhaps even your future colonial palace in … North Korea? Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
From Booklist
Amid the torrent of books on terrorism, liberalism, American empire, and the apocalypse, Ferguson's stands out not in its premise--suggesting that America is an empire is nothing new--but in its assertion that an American empire is good for the world (this coming from a European writer). Though aspiring to neither colonialism nor conquest, argues Ferguson, America does indeed control an empire, defined by the "soft power" of economic muscle and liberal democratic idealism. Like the British empire of the early twentieth century, American economic and military supremacy can offer stability in ways weaker powers and inward-turned institutions like the European Union cannot. There's a catch, though--America cannot remain in willful denial about its global responsibilities, lest it fall as other empires have fallen before it. The deficit is the problem, says Ferguson--the fiscal one, sure, but more importantly, America's attention deficit when it comes to necessary yet protracted and unglamorous foreign endeavors. This is a conservative argument, smacking gently of The Economist editorial page, but it is far from optimistic. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The New York Times Book Review, July 25, 2004
Ferguson's...most ambitious effort yet to connect historical analysis with what is happening in the world today.
Book Description
Niall Ferguson brings his renowned historical and economic depth of field to bear on a bold and sweeping reckoning with America's imperial status and its consequences.
Is America an empire? Certainly not, according to our government. Despite the conquest of two sovereign states in as many years, despite the presence of more than 750 military installations in two thirds of the world's countries and despite his stated intention "to extend the benefits of freedom...to every corner of the world," George W. Bush maintains that "America has never been an empire." "We don't seek empires," insists Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. "We're not imperialistic."
Nonsense, says Niall Ferguson. In Colossus he argues that in both military and economic terms America is nothing less than the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. Just like the British Empire a century ago, the United States aspires to globalize free markets, the rule of law, and representative government. In theory it's a good project, says Ferguson. Yet Americans shy away from the long-term commitments of manpower and money that are indispensable if rogue regimes and failed states really are to be changed for the better. Ours, he argues, is an empire with an attention deficit disorder, imposing ever more unrealistic timescales on its overseas interventions. Worse, it's an empire in denial-a hyperpower that simply refuses to admit the scale of its global responsibilities. And the negative consequences will be felt at home as well as abroad. In an alarmingly persuasive final chapter Ferguson warns that this chronic myopia also applies to our domestic responsibilities. When overstretch comes, he warns, it will come from within-and it will reveal that more than just the feet of the American colossus is made of clay.
About the Author
Niall Ferguson is Herzog Professor of Financial History at the Stern Business School, New York University, and Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University. Born in Glasgow in 1964, he graduated with First Class Honors from Magdalen College, Oxford. His previous books include The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, The Cash Nexus, and Empire. A prolific commentator on contemporary politics, he writes and reviews regularly for the American and British press.
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