The Empire Project

The Empire Project PDF Author: John Darwin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139482149
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 815

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Book Description
The British Empire, wrote Adam Smith, 'has hitherto been not an empire, but the project of an empire' and John Darwin offers a magisterial global history of the rise and fall of that great imperial project. The British Empire, he argues, was much more than a group of colonies ruled over by a scattering of British expatriates until eventual independence. It was, above all, a global phenomenon. Its power derived rather less from the assertion of imperial authority than from the fusing together of three different kinds of empire: the settler empire of the 'white dominions'; the commercial empire of the City of London; and 'Greater India' which contributed markets, manpower and military muscle. This unprecedented history charts how this intricate imperial web was first strengthened, then weakened and finally severed on the rollercoaster of global economic, political and geostrategic upheaval on which it rode from beginning to end.

The Empire Project

The Empire Project PDF Author: John Darwin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139482149
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 815

Get Book Here

Book Description
The British Empire, wrote Adam Smith, 'has hitherto been not an empire, but the project of an empire' and John Darwin offers a magisterial global history of the rise and fall of that great imperial project. The British Empire, he argues, was much more than a group of colonies ruled over by a scattering of British expatriates until eventual independence. It was, above all, a global phenomenon. Its power derived rather less from the assertion of imperial authority than from the fusing together of three different kinds of empire: the settler empire of the 'white dominions'; the commercial empire of the City of London; and 'Greater India' which contributed markets, manpower and military muscle. This unprecedented history charts how this intricate imperial web was first strengthened, then weakened and finally severed on the rollercoaster of global economic, political and geostrategic upheaval on which it rode from beginning to end.

Dismantling the Empire

Dismantling the Empire PDF Author: Chalmers Johnson
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429964049
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The author of the bestselling Blowback Trilogy reflects on America's waning power in a masterful collection of essays In his prophetic book Blowback, published before 9/11, Chalmers Johnson warned that our secret operations in Iraq and elsewhere around the globe would exact a price at home. Now, in a brilliant series of essays written over the last three years, Johnson measures that price and the resulting dangers America faces. Our reliance on Pentagon economics, a global empire of bases, and war without end is, he declares, nothing short of "a suicide option." Dismantling the Empire explores the subjects for which Johnson is now famous, from the origins of blowback to Barack Obama's Afghanistan conundrum, including our inept spies, our bad behavior in other countries, our ill-fought wars, and our capitulation to a military that has taken ever more control of the federal budget. There is, he proposes, only one way out: President Obama must begin to dismantle the empire before the Pentagon dismantles the American Dream. If we do not learn from the fates of past empires, he suggests, our decline and fall are foreordained. This is Johnson at his best: delivering both a warning and an urgent prescription for a remedy.

Unfinished Empire

Unfinished Empire PDF Author: John Darwin
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 1846146712
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 574

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Book Description
A both controversial and comprehensive historical analysis of how the British Empire worked, from Wolfson Prize-winning author and historian John Darwin The British Empire shaped the world in countless ways: repopulating continents, carving out nations, imposing its own language, technology and values. For perhaps two centuries its expansion and final collapse were the single largest determinant of historical events, and it remains surrounded by myth, misconception and controversy today. John Darwin's provocative and richly enjoyable book shows how diverse, contradictory and in many ways chaotic the British Empire really was, controlled by interests that were often at loggerheads, and as much driven on by others' weaknesses as by its own strength.

The Rise and Fall of the British Empire

The Rise and Fall of the British Empire PDF Author: Lawrence James
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 146684213X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 978

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Book Description
“A stylish, intelligent and readable book.” —The New York Times Book Review Birthed as a maritime superpower, the ruler of half the globe, Britain today finds itself in a precarious position, often stirring conflict within its European kin. This book provides a nuanced reflection of Britain's tumultuous transition from a globally dominant empire to an economically fragile island. In The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, Lawrence James has written a comprehensive, perceptive, and insightful history of the British Empire. Spanning the years from 1600 to the present day, this critically acclaimed book combines detailed scholarship with readable popular history.

A People's History of American Empire

A People's History of American Empire PDF Author: Howard Zinn
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805087444
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Adapted from the critically acclaimed chronicle of U.S. history, a study of American expansionism around the world is told from a grassroots perspective and provides an analysis of important events from Wounded Knee to Iraq.

Imperial Encore

Imperial Encore PDF Author: Caroline Ritter
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520375939
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
In the 1930s, British colonial officials introduced drama performances, broadcasting services, and publication bureaus into Africa under the rubric of colonial development. They used theater, radio, and mass-produced books to spread British values and the English language across the continent. This project proved remarkably resilient: well after the end of Britain’s imperial rule, many of its cultural institutions remained in place. Through the 1960s and 1970s, African audiences continued to attend Shakespeare performances and listen to the BBC, while African governments adopted English-language textbooks produced by metropolitan publishing houses. Imperial Encore traces British drama, broadcasting, and publishing in Africa between the 1930s and the 1980s—the half century spanning the end of British colonial rule and the outset of African national rule. Caroline Ritter shows how three major cultural institutions—the British Council, the BBC, and Oxford University Press—integrated their work with British imperial aims, and continued this project well after the end of formal British rule. Tracing these institutions and the media they produced through the tumultuous period of decolonization and its aftermath, Ritter offers the first account of the global footprint of British cultural imperialism.

Dilemmas of Domination

Dilemmas of Domination PDF Author: Walden Bello
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805080216
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
From "the world's leading no-nonsense revolutionary," a bold and effective analysis of American military, economic, and political vulnerability (Naomi Klein) The empire seems unassailable, but the empire is weak--and precisely because of its quest for global domination. So argues Walden Bello in this provocative portrait of imperial self-destruction, which systematically dissects the dilemmas confronting America as a result of its drive for supremacy. Puncturing the myth of American invincibility, Bello exposes its carefully concealed contradictions: despite the enormity of the U.S. military apparatus, American forces are critically overextended and ever threatened by the simmering resistance each new "victory" breeds. Though America is still the land of unprecedented prosperity, economic breakdown looms, the consequence of gargantuan military costs, exploitative trade and investment relations with developing countries, and record-breaking deficits. A clear and prophetic examination, Dilemmas of Domination reveals a not-too-distant future in which the empire's hidden weaknesses will yield fatal challenges to American omnipotence. "With unsentimental clarity, Walden Bello speaks the truth about American empire and why it is doomed by its own contradictions." --William Greider, author of The Soul of Capitalism

Empire's Workshop

Empire's Workshop PDF Author: Greg Grandin
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1429959150
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
An eye-opening examination of Latin America's role as proving ground for U.S. imperial strategies and tactics In recent years, one book after another has sought to take the measure of the Bush administration's aggressive foreign policy. In their search for precedents, they invoke the Roman and British empires as well as postwar reconstructions of Germany and Japan. Yet they consistently ignore the one place where the United States had its most formative imperial experience: Latin America. A brilliant excavation of a long-obscured history, Empire's Workshop is the first book to show how Latin America has functioned as a laboratory for American extraterritorial rule. Historian Greg Grandin follows the United States' imperial operations, from Thomas Jefferson's aspirations for an "empire of liberty" in Cuba and Spanish Florida, to Ronald Reagan's support for brutally oppressive but U.S.-friendly regimes in Central America. He traces the origins of Bush's policies to Latin America, where many of the administration's leading lights—John Negroponte, Elliott Abrams, Otto Reich—first embraced the deployment of military power to advance free-market economics and first enlisted the evangelical movement in support of their ventures. With much of Latin America now in open rebellion against U.S. domination, Grandin concludes with a vital question: If Washington has failed to bring prosperity and democracy to Latin America—its own backyard "workshop"—what are the chances it will do so for the world?

The Lion and the Springbok

The Lion and the Springbok PDF Author: Ronald Hyam
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521824532
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
This book traces British and South African relations from the Boer War to the present.

The Complex

The Complex PDF Author: Nick Turse
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805089196
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Here is the new, hip, high-tech military-industrial complex--an omnipresent, hidden-in-plain-sight system of systems that penetrates all our lives. From iPods to Starbucks to Oakley sunglasses, historian Nick Turse explores the Pentagon's little-noticed contacts (and contracts) with the products and companies that now form the fabric of America. Turse investigates the remarkable range of military incursions into the civilian world: the Pentagon's collaborations with Hollywood filmmakers; its outlandish schemes to weaponize the wild kingdom; its joint ventures with the World Wrestling Federation and NASCAR. He shows the inventive ways the military, desperate for new recruits, now targets children and young adults, tapping into the "culture of cool" by making "friends" on MySpace. We are a long way from Eisenhower's military-industrial complex: this is its twenty-first-century progeny.--From publisher description.