The Dreams of Empire

The New York Review of Books
By Tony Judt

"Talk of "empire" makes Americans distinctly uneasy. This
is odd. In its westward course the young republic was
not embarrassed to suck virgin land and indigenous
peoples into the embrace of Thomas Jefferson's "empire
for liberty." Millions of American immigrants made and
still make their first acquaintance with the US through
New York, "the Empire State." From Monroe to Bush,
American presidents have not hesitated to pronounce
doctrines whose extraterritorial implications define
imperial authority and presume it: there is nothing
self-effacing about that decidedly imperious bird on the
Presidential Seal."

[Click the tittle to get the New York Review of Books article ]

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