Incoherent Empire [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

To his credit, Mann does a fine job proving his thesis (articulated on page 13), that the employment of military unilateralism by the Bush Administration is not the policy of "realism" it's made out to be. With his thorough focus on ongoing and potential military threats and ample documentation of global, especially Middle Eastern, opinions of American actions, Mann proves that we're not winning any friends worldwide. Indeed, burdened as we are with a particularly parochial viewpoint, "Americans, insulated within their self-censorship, do not even know how isolated they are" (p. 261). Worse, many Americans who do recognize this don't seem to care.

This is where I think Mann's tone comes into play. His casual deployment of Leftist smear-words (describing the 2000 election, for example, as "a neo-conservative chicken-hawk coup" [p. 252], as just one example), or constant mis-identification of America's mercantilist trade policy as "capitalism" or "free trade," no doubt endear him to a certain segment of his readership. But it undermines what I think is a far more important mission: helping potentially sympathetic audiences (even conservative ones) see the strengths of his arguments. In this area, Chalmers Johnson's recent "The Sorrows of Empire" is a much better work.

The other area where Johnson's book is far stronger than Mann's is in his long-term historical perspective. Mann is too quick to paint the new militarism as a product of a neo-conservative cabal. Unquestionably, the neo-cons play a major role in the growth of the Empire, especially the current emphasis on military unilateralism. But Mann writes as though the "Incoherent Empire" was conceived in Defense Department memoranda during Bush the Elder's term, and midwifed by Bush the Younger following 9/11. In fact, Johnson makes an almost ironclad (in my opinion) case that the roots of Empire sink far back into America's past. The old cliché about Rome not being built in a day has a literal, and precise, application here.

And if Rome wasn't built in a day, it won't be burnt in one either. Mann writes on his last page that the "political solution" to the situation he describes is to "throw the new militarists out of office" in November 2004. But to turn out the neo-cons and replace Bush the Younger with someone different (and the differences between Bush and Kerry are much smaller than either man would have us believe), would simply mean changing the Emperor. The apparatus of imperial power would remain in place.

Mann's book is a good start, but I believe he needs to widen his field of vision somewhat. This is about far more than a few "chicken hawks."

So Michael Mann took time out from his scholarly work to give us a clear and concise analysis of American Imperialism. Since his specialty is the history of empires of the past, he is well equipped to tell us about the American empire of the present.

His conclusion: The US government has military power, but does not meet any of the other requirements for establishing and keeping a successful empire. If you want to know the details, buy and read his book.

If it were put to a vote, I would vote against American imperialism. So would Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams, if we could bring them back from the grave.