The true story of Uncle Sam?

Niall Ferguson's analysis of America's imperialism in Colossus is both fine and flawed, says Martin Jacques

Colossus: The Price of America's Empire by Niall Ferguson
Buy Colossus at Amazon.co.uk

Colossus: The Price of America's Empire
by Niall Ferguson
384pp, Allen Lane, £20

There is a widely held fiction that there is no such thing as an American empire. Not surprisingly, Americans, particularly in Washington, have long been attached to this theory. A number of factors have conspired to foster the illusion: that the United States was born in rebellion against an imperial power; that it has possessed relatively few formal colonies of its own and therefore never resembled the classic European imperial model of the late 19th century; and that during the cold war the United States' credo was allegedly one of containment rather than expansion.

Niall Ferguson cuts through this hypocritical nonsense with power and verve. He shows that from its very birth the business of the new American nation was one of imperial expansion, which in the first instance involved the creation of a continental empire. The combined area of the founding states amounts to a mere 8% of the total extent of the US today. "Just as the 'rights of man' did not apply to his or any other plantation owner's slaves," Ferguson explains, "so territorial expansion would not be based on the consent of the indigenous peoples of North America." On the contrary, continuing the tradition of the early settlers, the creation of the US was based on the defeat and destruction of the indigenous peoples.

By the time the US had grown to occupy half a continent, it turned to overseas expansion - to the Caribbean, notably Puerto Rico, and the Pacific, namely Hawaii and Guam, and beyond that the Philippines. By the turn of the last century, as Ferguson points out, America's imperial expansion was not so different from Europe's. Americans, though, remained in denial. As Walter Lipman wrote in 1926: "We continue to think of ourselves as a kind of great, peaceful Switzerland, whereas we are in fact a great, expanding world power. Our imperialism is more or less unconscious."

Ferguson traces the history of the American empire through the 20th century and the cold war. He rightly argues that it is wrong to be deceived into thinking that, because its traditional mode of expansion was not by colonisation, it was somehow not an imperial power. Its imperial expansion has relied on formal and especially informal means, backed by its extraordinary economic and military reach. It currently possesses 752 military installations in more than 130 countries. Its military budget is greater than the combined totals of the next 12 to 15 nations. There are, in other words, many ways of exercising imperial power and influence. He correctly sees the fall of the Berlin wall - 11/9, as he calls it - as a more important moment in the evolution of American imperialism than 9/11, though perhaps he underplays the extent to which it was the attacks on the Pentagon and the twin towers that detonated a new sense of imperial ambition made possible by the collapse of communism.

For the most part, his discussion of America's imperial history is convincing and judicious. When he arrives at the invasion of Iraq, though, his tone suddenly changes and his writing becomes intoxicated, intemperate and partisan, more like a propaganda tract than a sober piece of historical writing. The main object of his vituperation is the French: given the mess that the Americans are now in, the tone is strangely out of kilter with the unfolding reality of what may prove to be one of the worst and most ill-judged chapters in the history of imperial adventure.

Ferguson is a proponent of empire. He writes: "I am fundamentally in favour of empire. Indeed, I believe that empire is more necessary in the 21st century than ever before." He thinks that the US should greatly expand its imperial commitments. He believes that, given that empires have hitherto dominated most of history, the period since the second world war, with the huge expansion in the number of independent nation-states, is a historical anomaly. Furthermore, he argues that "the coming of political independence has brought prosperity only to a small minority of former colonies ... In short, the experiment with political independence, especially in Africa, has been a disaster for most poor countries ... Might it not be that for some countries some form of imperial governance, meaning a partial or complete suspension of their national sovereignty, might be better than full independence, not just for a few months or years but for decades?" Ferguson, in short, is a super-imperialist.

He is quite wrong to suggest that independence has been a failure for the majority of former colonies. Has it failed for India, or Taiwan, or Malaysia, or South Korea, or Singapore, or Vietnam, or Botswana or countless others one could mention? Ferguson provides little justification for this judgment, and this is typical. A writer who at his best is balanced and judicious, he is also given to the sweeping generalisation and the wild exaggeration. Indeed, in the section in question, he constantly shifts his criteria: basically he seems to be talking about sub-Saharan Africa, but keeps lurching off and including everyone else.

He fondly remembers the British empire and regards this as a template for a new American liberal empire. He argues that the best formula for global progress is a combination of liberal empire and economic globalisation. He acquits globalisation of any responsibility for the growing disparities in the world, instead blaming the failure of newly independent states. On the contrary, he argues that globalisation has been too constrained, too incomplete; and that free trade and free markets (terms which he fails to question) should be introduced on a far more thorough-going basis. But East Asia, by far the most successful region over the past quarter of a century, has never been a disciple of "free trade and free markets" in Ferguson's simplistic sense.

Ferguson berates the many newly independent states that have eschewed democracy. But the fate of democracy under imperial tutelage does not detain him. This has always been a classic instance of western hypocrisy. While democracy has often thrived in the imperial homeland, it was never granted to the "natives" (except in the case of the white dominions of the British empire). Democracy was confined to the "civilised" heartland and its host race; the colonised races were never fit for such privileges.

The most formidable argument against this new imperialism is not even hinted at in Ferguson's book. The reason for the collapse of empire around the middle of the last century was the wave of anti-colonial struggle, the fact that peoples around the world - black, brown and yellow - no longer wanted, or were prepared, to be ruled by imperial "master" races, which invariably meant white (with the exception of the Japanese). That was the reason why, in such a short space of time, the number of nation-states became so hugely swollen. Alas, in Ferguson's book, the peoples of the developing world - the great bulk of humanity - are somehow never the subjects of his inquiry. And so he manages to ignore this extraordinarily important historical reality. He is not alone. In the present atmosphere of western hubris, this lesson has somehow been forgotten, imperialism has again become fashionable, and in the process the achievements of the former colonies thoroughly denigrated.

History, though, is already giving its own answer. The US and Britain - in a state of amnesia - underestimated the kind of resistance they would face from the Iraqis. Already they are desperately searching for an escape route. If the Americans can't even subdue Iraq, then what chance for the greatly expanded liberal American empire comprising all those rogue states and failed states of which Ferguson dreams? None.

If Ferguson loses his sense of reality in dreaming of empire, he recovers it towards the end of the book. There is a good and balanced discussion of the prospects for the European Union and an even better analysis of the economic problems that confront the US. One of Ferguson's great strengths as a historian is that he understands economics. He demonstrates the dangers that now face the US in terms of its twin economic deficits, namely its external deficit and its growing budget deficit. Unlike, for example, the case of the British empire, the US, the great and overweening power of our time, is a debtor nation that depends for its equilibrium on huge amounts of credit from the rest of the world, mainly East Asia and especially China. This, as Ferguson points out in an excellent chapter, is a deeply unstable situation, fraught with dangers not only for the US but for the global economy as a whole. His conclusion is that the US has neither the will nor the economic means to sustain the new empire he would like to see.

· Martin Jacques is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics Asian Research Centre.

· Niall Ferguson is talking about the book at the Guardian Hay Festival this afternoon at 2.30pm. For details, see www.hayfestival.com


Your IP address will be logged

Guardian Bookshop

This week's bestsellers

  1. 1.  Good Book

    by A C Grayling £25.00

  2. 2.  Eagle of The Ninth

    by Rosemary Sutcliff £6.99

  3. 3.  Zero Degrees of Empathy

    by Simon BaronCohen £20.00

  4. 4.  Ten Poems About Tea

    by Sophie Dahl £4.95

  5. 5.  Faber Poetry Collection

    £48.00

TixDaq

Buy tickets for top music events

Compare and buy tickets for thousands of events

  1. Reading Festival

    Reading Festival

    Wednesday, 24 Aug, 2011

    Richfield Avenue - Reading

  2. Cee-Lo Green

    Cee-Lo Green

    Wednesday, 13 Apr, 2011

    O2 Academy Bristol - Bristol

  3. Kings Of Leon

    Kings Of Leon

    Saturday, 28 May, 2011

    Slane Castle - Slane

Tickets to more music events Browse tickets

Bestsellers from the Guardian shop

  • Mondaine Swiss Railway Watch
  • Mondaine Swiss Railway Watch

  • The Mondaine Swiss Railway watch is a recognised design classic. This Swiss watch is made entirely from recycled materials and is suitable for men or women.

    Several designs available.

  • From: £89.99

Latest news on guardian.co.uk