American imperialism

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  3/24/2022
  

  How American Culture Ate the World

  by Dexter Fergie

  Sam Lebovic's book "A Righteous Smokescreen" seeks to explain how the cultural globalization of the 20th century was a one-way exchange of American culture that left Americans dominant but isolated from and ignorant of the rest of the world. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  1/11/2022
  

  Why Smedley Butler Turned Against US Empire

  by Patrick Iber

  After leading Marines to secure the American empire in the wake of the Spanish-American War, Major Smedley Butler by 1935 repented and called himself "a racketeer for capitalism." 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/3/2021
  

  America Is Giving the World a Disturbing New Kind of War

  by Samuel Moyn

  The adoption of rhetoric of "humane war" after Vietnam has allowed discussions of how to wage war to sideline discussions of whether to wage war at all, and encourages secrecy, surveillance, and long-term engagement. 

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• SOURCE: New Statesman
  9/8/2021
  

  The New Era of American Power

  by Adam Tooze

  The dominant position of American financial interests and the still-escalating Pentagon budget, focusing on technological dominance over China, mean that it's too soon to celebrate the end of American interventionism abroad. 

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• SOURCE: Project Syndicate
  8/31/2021
  

  Podcast: Stephen Wertheim on the End of the Indispensable Nation

  Since September 11, has the idea of America as an "indispensable nation" for the cause of liberty, democracy and peace done more harm than good? Historian Stephen Wertheim discusses foreign policy with Elmira Bayrasli. 

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  8/19/2021
  

  The All-American Base World

  by Patterson Deppen

  Despite the withdrawal from Afghanistan, there are still 750 US military bases around the world, showing that America's "forever wars" may only be briefly paused. 

• 
• SOURCE: Public Books
  4/16/2021
  

  Choosing Empire: America Before And After World War II

  Historian Samuel Zipp reviews two new books by Nancy Cott and Stephen Wertheim that examine how the United States came to embrace, and perhaps become stuck with, a role as the world's policeman. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/11/2021
  

  Obama Embraced ‘Endless Wars.’ Biden Probably Will, Too

  by Samuel Moyn

  Will Joe Biden's shift in tone from Trump's belligerence paper over many continuities in 21st-century American empire? 

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• SOURCE: London Review of Books
  11/1/2020
  

  Warfare State (Review Essay)

  by Thomas Meaney

  Two new books articulate a critique from a conservative perspective of American military intervention abroad. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  10/19/2020
  

  Why Is America the World’s Police? (Review)

  by Sam Lebovic

  A review of Stephen Wertheim's "Tomorrow, The World" concludes the new book shows how American military supremacy moved in a generation from a novel idea to embedded common sense, and demands rethinking the resources spent to maintain it.