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Leading Historian Says U.S. ‘Empire’ To Fail
By LEV MENAND
10/20/05 "Harvard
Crimson" -- -- The American empire may actually
cause disorder, barbarism, and chaos rather than promote peace and
order, one of the world’s leading historians, Eric J. Hobsbawm,
explained last night to a packed crowd at Lowell Lecture Hall.
While he didn’t take a final stance on that issue, Hobsbawm’s
lecture on the differences between the American empire and the
British empire was notable for his assertion that America is an
empire destined for failure.
While many other historians do not consider America to be an empire,
Hobsbawm argued yesterday that it is.
Concepts of imperialism and empire are “in flat contradiction to the
traditional political self-definition of the U.S.A.,” Hobsbawm said,
however, “there is no precedent for the global supremacy that the
U.S. government is trying to establish.”
The American empire “will almost certainly fail,” Hobsbawm said.
“Will the U.S. learn the lesson [of the British Empire] or will it
try to maintain an eroding global position by relying on a failing
political force and a military force which is insufficient for the
present purposes which the current American government claims it is
designed?”
Hobsbawm addressed America’s past and present foreign policy in his
speech, the second of three William E. Massey lectures this week
sponsored by Harvard’s Program in the History of American
Civilization.
This year’s theme, crafted by Professor of History Sven Beckert, is
the “American Empire in Global Perspective,” and features speeches
from the perspective of three foreigners, Hobsbawm, who is from
England, Jayati Ghosh, from India, and Carlos Monsivais, from
Mexico.
Past Massey lecturers have included, Richard Rorty, Toni Morrison,
Gore Vidal, and Alfred Kazin.
Mentioning the work of Tisch Professor of History Niall C. Ferguson
and Weatherhead University Professor Samuel P. Huntington, Hobsbawm
drew clear distinctions between his owns views and their theories.
“Unlike people like me, he regrets it,” Hobsbawm said, referring to
Ferguson’s opinion of the end of the American empire.
He spoke at length on the crucial differences between the American
hegemony and the British empire, focusing on their different
foundations. Britain had an economy-based empire and never tried to
dominate the world, he said, realizing that “they were a
middle-weight country” that could only hold on to the “heavy-weight
title” for so long.
The U.S. empire, on the other hand, was not created through economic
dominance but crafted through political means, according to
Hobsbawm. He pointed to this as the U.S.’s “biggest strength and
weakness,” since the political forces that hold the empire together
may not necessarily last.
He said that from its roots in the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. has
never viewed itself as a part of an international system of rival
political powers. It lacks a foundation myth, Hobsbawm said, which
is the basis for most other current nation states.
“Since the U.S.A. was founded by revolution against Britain, the
only continuity between them that was not shaken was culture,” he
explained, “so the national identity couldn’t very well be
historical...[rather] it had to be constructed out of its
revolutionary ideology.”
After graduating from the University of Cambridge in 1939, Hobsbawm
went on to hold teaching positions at the University of London, the
New School, Stanford, MIT, and Cornell. His most acclaimed book,
“The Age of Extremes”—a history of the 20th century—has been
translated into 36 languages.
Faced with the question of the future of the American empire,
Hobsbawm concluded: “I’m an historian, I’m not a prophet. Don’t ask
me that question.”
Copyright © 2005, The Harvard Crimson, Inc
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