Colossus: the Price of America's Empire.

• Author: Preble, Christopher
• Position: Book Review

Colossus: The Price of America's Empire Niall Ferguson New York: Penguin Press, 2004, 384 pp.

"Unlike the majority of European writers who have written on this subject," writes historian Niall Ferguson, "I am fundamentally in favor of empire." In particular, Ferguson favors American empire, a term that he uses repeatedly, and without hesitation.

Ferguson has enjoyed great success as an author, lecturer and occasional television personality (the British documentary Empire featured the urbane academic discussing his most famous book), on account of his straightforward claims and erudite prose. But given that many Americans are extremely unwilling to accept even the suggestion that the United States is an empire--much less that it should be--one might expect Ferguson to soft-pedal the issue in the interest of retaining the reader's sympathy. Instead, he opts for the direct approach.

Ferguson asserts that the world would be better off if the United States admitted its imperial nature and set about managing its empire in a coherent and consistent manner. Thus, the challenge for Ferguson is not in understanding why America is an empire, but rather why Americans have such difficulty coming to grips with their imperial status. He borrows from Walter Lippmann in wondering whether American imperialism might be "more or less unconscious."

Ferguson repeatedly berates Americans for their impatience, their short attention spans, and their concern about costs, including an alleged unwillingness to incur casualties on the battlefield. Accordingly, while Ferguson would like to be confident that events in Afghanistan and Iraq will turn out well, he admits that "it is far from clear as I write that the United States is capable of committing either the manpower or the time needed to make a success of its 'nation building' in Iraq, much less Afghanistan" (p. 28).

But his claim that fear of casualties dictates America's conduct of military operations is a gross oversimplification. America has risked the lives of millions in her history--but generally in the defense of perceived national interests Indeed, America was born of anti-imperialism, and it is hard to imagine Americans giddily donning jodhpurs and pith helmets to instantiate the theories of a zealous Scottish academic.

With respect to the moral rectitude of empire, he is usually careful to conceal his feelings, but the cultural condescension that undergirds Ferguson's worldview occasionally peeks...