# Cumings, Bruce, "Is America an Imperial Power?," Current History (November 2003). 1.1-4

Imperialisms, Ancient and Modern, Cumings, Bruce, "Is America an Imperial Power?," Current History (November 2003)., Lines 1.1-1.4. Latin.

Canonical: https://interlinea.aeterna-institute.org/library/latin/imperialisms-ancient-and-modern/cumings-bruce-is-america-an-imperial-power-current-history-november-2003/1.1

Cumings, Is America an Imperial Power? (2003)
"That the United States would be hegemonic was inevitable from Bretton Woods onward. That it might also become an empire was not."
Who could have predicted that in the early years of the new millennium, the signature slogan of 1960s radicals, "American imperialism," would come roaring back to life? Several serious and substantial books have recently appeared in the United States with "empire" in the title, all trying to come to grips with the Brave New World created by George Bush and company. l Around the rest of the globe a debate rages over American power and "the echoes of empires past," in the words of The New York Times' Richard Bern-stem. But is this a good way to think about the nature of contemporary American power in the world?
Empire is clearly a useful concept for understanding the history of the successive bureaucratic dynasties that ruled China until 1911, or the prewar capitalist empires such as those of Great Britain, France, and Japan, which rested on exclusively held territories known as colonies. It is not a useful concept, however, if we mean it, without any redefinition, to denote the United States and its current position in the world. To do so instantly runs afoul of the classic understanding of imperialism as some form of direct or monopoly control of another nation or of regions of the world economy (such as sterling blocs and franc blocs). No one argues that the United States possesses monopoly controls in the world economy or runs a set of territorial possessions lacking any attribute of national sovereignty. Empire might be redefined with various "post-" or "ultra-" or "neo-" tags, but these also beg the question. If imperialism means direct or monopoly control and neo-imperialism does not, perhaps we need a different term. We certainly need an explication of the differences between classical and contemporary imperialism.

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Imperialisms, Ancient and Modern, Cumings, Bruce, "Is America an Imperial Power?," Current History (November 2003).. Text: The Latin Library (thelatinlibrary.com), used with permission. Changes: HTML markup removed and the text divided into reading sections by Interlinea.
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