Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
28
See the works by William Appleman Williams, especially
The Tragedy of American Diplomacy
(New York:
Norton, 1959).
29
Richard Barnet,
Intervention and Revolution: America's Confrontation with Insurgent Movements Around the
World
(New York: World Publishing, 1968), 25.
30
The historian Niall Ferguson captured this widely held view, noting that “the British Empire is the most com-
monly cited precedent for the global power currently wielded by the United States. America is heir to the Empire
in both senses: offspring in the colonial era, successor today.” Ferguson,
Empire: The Rise and Demise of the Brit-
ish World Order and the Lessons for Global Power
(New York: Basic Books, 2002), xii. For surveys of the large
and growing list of topics and essays on the United States as global empire, see G. John Ikenberry, “The Illusions
of Empire,”
Foreign Affairs
82, no. 2 (March/April 2004), 144-54; Alexander J. Motyl, “Is Empire Everything? Is
Everything Empire?”
Comparative Politics
39 (2006), 229-49; and Charles S. Maier, “Empire Without End: Imper-
ial Achievements and Ideologies,”
Foreign Affairs
89, no. 4 (July/August 2010), 153-59.
31
In efforts to capture the distinctive blend of liberal and imperial features of America's postwar political form-
ation, scholars have used terms such as “empire by invitation,” “consensual hegemony,” “empire by consent,” and
“empire of trust.” These terms have been invoked, respectively, by Geir Lundstadt,
The American “Empire”
(Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Charles S. Maier, “Alliance and Autonomy: European Identity and U.S. For-
eign Policy Objectives in the Truman Years,” in Michael Lacey, ed.,
The Truman Presidency
(Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1991); John Lewis Gaddis,
We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History
(New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1997); and Thomas F. Madden,
Empires of Trust: How Rome Built—and America Is Build-
ing—a New World
(London: Plume, 2009).
32
See David Lake,
Entangling Relations: American Foreign Policy in Its Century
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1999); and Lake, “Anarchy, Hierarchy and the Variety of International Relations,”
International
Organization
50, no. 1 (1996), 1-35.
33
The literature on empire is vast. For studies of the logic of empire, see Michael Doyle,
Empires
(Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1984); and Herfried Munkler,
Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient
Rome to the United States
(London: Polity, 2007). For recent comprehensive histories, see John Darwin,
After Tam-
erlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405
(New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008); and Jane Burbank and Fre-
derick Cooper,
Empires and the Politics of Difference in World History
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2010).
34
For an important exploration of regional variations within the American “imperium,” see Katzenstein,
A World
of Regions
. Katzenstein argues that the character of Europe and East Asia as regions has been influenced by America
as a global geopolitical presence. In particular, the intermediary role of Germany and Japan as supporters of United
States power and purpose have shaped in complex and divergent ways the institutions and political organizations of
these regions. My study draws upon several of Katzenstein's insights, including the importance of Europe and East
Asia and the differential ways in which they have extended and institutionalized American power in their regions
but also set limits on it as well.
35
This study focuses primarily on the international order created by the United States and the other great powers.
It does not fully illuminate the wider features of world order that include America's relations with weaker, less de-
veloped, and peripheral states.
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