Empire as a Way of Life: An Essay on the Causes and Character of America's Present Predicament Along with a Few Thoughts about an Alternative

by William Appleman Williams

Book Overview

Williams takes us through American history from its origins in Elizabethan England until the present and shows how this history has been based on continual and unlimited expansion an on seeking imperial dominion over internal and external foes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195030451
• ISBN13: 9780195030457
• Release Date: February 1982
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

A fascinating argument

Read this for an early American Lit class - as some background material for what we would be covering. Williams is probably one of the most influential writers in the field of American studies that deals with the United States' empirical nature. This particular work was written at the end of his scholarly career, so it's pretty beefy in the way of solid textual evidence to back up his claims, but his claims are still a bit out there for me - for instance, according to Williams, Lincoln was only fighting the Civil War for his own interests in gaining "fortune and fame." Like I said, Williams' claims, no matter how out-there they are, are well argued and supported, but I think he has the tendency to oversimplify issues and events that are far more complex than he makes them out to be. Oversimplifying a claim makes it much easier to argue and support, so it's easy to see what sort of tactic he's taking in tackling the subject matter he's chosen, but the amount of textual evidence is still very impressive at times, and I think the work is worth reading in respect for the amount of research that went into it alone. Read this, keeping in mind that Williams is taking just ONE path in the study of American imperial culture. I don't think many could argue against the claim that 'empire' is a 'way of life' for the United Sates, but I think one can argue just how much good or bad it's actually done for modern human history.

comment on comments

The two brief reviews of Empire as a Way of Life need brief comment themselves. First, Williams was not a Marxist though he certainly admired the contributions of Karl Marx to our understanding of how the modern world came into being. He was also curious about how it came to pass that Marx fell into intellectual oblivion. Second, Williams meant Empire as a Way of Life to be an essay to be read by the widest possible audience and certainly not one to be read after his much more detailed, complex works on diplomacy. And so it happened: Empire became a book widely read by lower division college students in history, political science, and sociology. We welcome the book in its new edition.

Empire as a Way of Life

Though dead for sixteen years, it is remarkable how much of a visionary William Appleman Williams truly was. He opens this book with a description of how America's political system has transformed our original ideology into an empire that is ever thirsting for new markets and how we've become more or less a slave to our own creation. Since so few people participate in our political system, our system has devolved into empire, though it remains Williams' hope that somehow this will change. This book is his attempt to illustrate how empire has emerged through the machinations of members of each political party who choose to follow the path of empire. This path has led America to be at odds with much of the rest of the world as we attempt to satisfy our need for growth. Readers should be forwarned that much of Williams' arguments in this book are rehashings of ideas he put forth with much more detail in Contours of American History, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, and The Roots of the Modern American Empire. Empire as a Way of Life should not be a reader's first encounter with Williams. His earlier works illustrate how deep Williams'knowledge of US history truly is. What this book does is develop his earlier arguments into a concise indictment of our society and its need for empire to sustain our growth. Williams points out that this does not need to be the case, but disinterest amongst American voters and the corporate world's ability to manipulate the issues creats the reality in which empire thrives. According to Williams, most, but not all, presidents give in to demands for empire and in reality do a disservice to the rest of the world and to our own ideology. Those presidents that do not share imperial thinking, such as Herbert Hoover, fall victim to some external force that limits or prevents them from realizing their full potential. But these are the people Williams speaks of most highly. Others, including FDR, JFK, and Henry Kissinger are not treated with kindness. NSC-68 is another source of our current dilemma for it has served as the blueprint for empire for nearly 40 years. Prior to this document, the Monroe Doctrine played a similar role. This book does have its oddities, though. At the end of some chapters are accounts of US interventions around the world that seem somewhat out of place. They do not receive much attention in the actual chapter and do not really serve much purpose. However, also buried amongst the pages are Williams personal opinions that make this book such a treat to read. It says much for a book that was written 21 years ago, predates the current neo-conservative movement, yet does so much to show how current events in Iraq are simply the story playing itself out beyond the pages of the actual book. In the introduction, Andrew Bacevich refers to Willaims as "Jeremiah" and given his ability to project the future, it is a moniker well deserved. We should take heed of what he says.

Yanks Doing Empire

U.S. foreign policy is as bad as British foreign policy with Bush and Blair skipping around the world hand-in-hand kicking sand in everyone's faces, along with a few bombs, missiles and so forth. How did we come to this? William Appleman Williams explained it well twenty-five years ago when he wrote this essay. Imperialism has always been our nation's "raison d'etre" despite all the high-sounding libertarian rhetoric to the contrary. In Williams's Marxist view of elite behavior, elites have always sought to enhance their pocketbooks at the expense of everyone around them. The Revolutionary War was a war to secure their pocketbooks from the mercantilists in England. The Constitution was a "coup d'etat" over the Articles of Confederation and the libertarian United States of America because the elites (Hamiltonians) who pulled it off wanted wars with North Africa and the Articles prevented the warmongers from starting them. The War of 1812 was fought on behalf of Yankee elites and their pocketbooks. The War Between the States was a war for empire. Abraham Lincoln made a "bargain with the 'Devil'"(p 92) to rape the Bill of Rights on behalf of Yankee elites and their pocketbooks. The Spanish-American War was instigated by the U.S. on behalf of elites and their desire to acquire the Philippines. After the U.S. liberated the Philippines quite quickly, they spent the next three years killing Filipinos in the name of empire. The British were so impressed with American empire, they sent a fifth column to win us over to join them in the trenches of France for the Great War. Woodrow Wilson obliged them by sending our boys over to the Western Front to "usher in a millenium of democratic progress" (p134). After the Yanks said never again and their women had voted in Prohibition to curtail their European-acquired bad habits, FDR came along. WW II had broken out, the Brits sent their fifth column again to win the U.S. back, and the Brits appointed Winston Churchill as Prime Minister because he was half Yankee. After FDR allowed Pearl Harbor which made everyone become what would later be termed "9/11 crazy", he committed our troops to war in Europe. It was a war for American-powered British Empire. Truman, Eisenhower, and even Kennedy continued FDR's imperialism. LBJ, Nixon, and Carter increasingly flexed their muscles so that when the CIA personnel in Tehran were taken hostage by the Iranian freedom fighters, Williams says they are "hostages to the American Empire" (p 207). Williams's strong point is his assertion that all of the above conflicts happened as a result of deliberate planning by government puppets of our elites. With 300 of today's 500 billionaires residing here in the U.S., Williams's insight is a big help to understanding who is doing what. The only caveat is Williams's confusion concerning capitalism and free enterprise, which he confuses with economic fascism or corporatism. He doesn't understand that government came first