The American Way of Empire

"The gravamen of The American Way of Empire is that American power depends upon a strong social contract between economic elites and the general population. We will be unable to meet the strategic challenges of the twenty-first century-China foremost among them-unless we repair that social contract and reunite the economic interests of elites with the interests of the rest of the country, as well as blunt the cultural hostility of our leadership class toward the majority of their fellow citizens. Kurth is unsparing: "The most crucial of all fractures of today is the fractured relationship between the U.S. economic elite and everyone else. And that fracture will not be repaired until that elite is removed."--Buddhika Jayamaha, FIRST THINGS, June 8, 2021(https: //www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/06/america-adrift)

"Kurth's provocative and passionate prose, accompanied by his brilliant analysis, make for lively reading. Indeed, his discussion of the American imperial idea constitutes but one of the book's many originalities. Divided into four sections, each following distinct thematic trajectories, The American Way of Empire investigates the rise and apparent decline of the American Empire from 1776 to the present. Eccentric, but replete with wisdom, the book draws on several fields: history, comparative politics, international relations, and political economy among others. Sometimes Kurth's prognoses and conclusions alarm, but he also suggests possible methods for the nation to extract itself from its present quagmire...The American Way of Empire is an entirely original and interpretive exploration of the American imperial project from its origins in the 19th century up to the present." --Charles W. Sharpe, Jr., CHRONICLES: A Magazine of American Culture, December 2020 issue (https: //www.chroniclesmagazine.org/the-adolescent-empire/) In this ground-breaking analysis, author James Kurth (a Harvard student of Samuel Huntington) explains that the roots of America's current foreign policy crisis lie in contradictions of an American empire which attempted to transform traditional American national interests promoted by Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt and FDR into a new American-led global order that has unsuccessfully attempted to promote supposedly universal, rather than uniquely American, ideals. Kurth dates the creation of the American empire to the morning of September 2, 1945, when General Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender of the Empire of Japan aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay; and its end to the failure of American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.