Overview

Surveying the pressures, external and internal, on the United States today, Lens concludes that like any other empire, the reign of the U.S. will end -- and he examines how this time of reckoning may come about.

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9781608468157

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In early 2003, Michael Ignatieff, a Harvard professor, wrote in the New York Times America's empire is not like empires of times past, built on colonies, conquest an the white man's burden. We are no longer in the era of the United Fruit Company, when American corporations needed the Marines to secure their investments overseas. The 21st century imperium is a new invention in the annals of political science, an empire lite, a global hegemony whose grace notes are free markets, human rights and democracy. Only someone blind to the history of the United States, its obsessive drive for control of oil, its endless expansion of military bases around the world, its domination of other countries through its enormous economic power, its violations of the human rights of millions of people, whether directly or through proxy governments, could make that statement. What Sidney Lens wrote around 1970 about 'the myth of morality' encircling American imperialism was clearly still in evidence in 2003. His history of American empire is essential for understanding what still goes on in our time. --From the foreword by Howard Zinn The observations Sidney Lens made of American imperialism in the 1970s are still valid today. You could say they were prophetic. I'm so glad this book is being republished. It couldn't be timelier. --Studs Terkel

Author Information

During the 1960s Sidney Lens, trade unionist, writer and dissident, avidly protested against the trial of the Chicago Eight as part of the 'Committee to Defend the Conspiracy' with, amongst others, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer. He also contributed significantly to the organisation of Anti-War marches held in Washington DC and San Francisco in 1969, protesting against the Vietnam War. Sidney Lens has written thirteen books. The Forging of the American Empire was originally published by Apollo Editions in 1974.

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