Empire Imagined
The Personality of American Power
Published By: State University of New York Press
Available from:
Empire Imagined offers a unique perspective for understanding the current debate about America’s role in the world.
The origins of the United States’ distinct approach to war and military power are found in the colonial experience. Long before 1776 or 1619, Englishmen understood themselves to be a part of a larger, lost “British” empire that might disappear forever in the globe-girdling shadow of the Spanish Hapsburgs and their drive to extirpate Protestantism. A combination of geopolitical ambition and fear of Philip II propelled Elizabethan expansion into North America. During the queen’s five decades on the throne, the British imperial impulse jelled into a distinct and widely shared strategic culture, anchored in a deeply held faith and political ideology that legitimized Tudor rule; increasingly centralized Tudor power across England, Scotland, and Ireland; forced attention to the continental European balance of power; and drew adventurers to explore the world and claim a toehold in North America. In Empire Imagined, Giselle Frances Donnelly traces the development of these enduring habits through a series of vignettes that reveal the interaction of a maturing strategic consensus and the contingencies inevitable in international politics and offers a unique perspective for understanding the current debate about America’s role in the world.
Why It Matters Now
Since the end of the Cold War, American foreign and security policy has been adrift. Without the yardstick of the Soviet threat, the US has strategized in a kind of vacuum. Neither the attacks of September 11, 2001 nor the rise of China nor the Russian revanche in Europe has created a coherent, overarching sense of US geopolitical purpose. Having made the world of the 20th century, what should America do now?
To imagine our future, Giselle Donnelly argues that we must plumb our past. Long before 1776 and 1619, English men and women crossed the Atlantic not to isolate themselves from the Old World but to empower themselves to defend their faith, countrymen, and political liberty while creating new wealth. They inhabited a world of empires and understood that to survive in it—and to hold together the diverse peoples of Britain—they must play the global game.
In Empire Imagined, Donnelly reveals the strategic unconscious of the American mind, one shaped by a global view, ideological motivation, and expansionist ambition. All this helped build the fear of strategic fragility and a belief that liberty would produce security. These traits still mark the American understanding of international politics and the balance of power. To imagine the American experiment’s future, we must recall its original design and purpose.
Reviews and Comments
“A rich and eloquent account of American strategic culture as it developed from the founding of the colonial project. Empire Imagined will appeal to a general readership as well as academics with an interest in historical perspectives of international relations, questions of security and strategy, etc.”
Martyn Frampton
Queen Mary University of London