In the Shadows of the American Century persuasively argues for the inevitable decline of the American empire and the rise of China. Whether or not one is a believer in American power, the case that Alfred McCoy makes—that much of America’s decline is due to its own contradictions and failures—is a sad one. He provides a glimmer of hope that America can ease into the role of a more generous, more collaborative, if less powerful, world player. Let’s hope that Americans will listen to his powerful arguments." —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Sympathizer
“[A] brilliant and deeply informed must-read for anyone seriously interested in geopolitics, the history of Empire, and the shape of the future.” —New York Journal of Books
"What is the character of this American empire?" Alfred McCoy asks at the outset of this provocative study. His answer not only limns the contours of the American imperium as it evolved during the twentieth century, but explains why its days are quite likely numbered. This is history with profound relevance to events that are unfolding before our eyes. —Andrew J. Bacevich, author of America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History
"Alfred McCoy offers a meticulous, eye-opening account of the rise, since 1945, and impending premature demise of the American Century of world domination. As the empire’s political, economic, and military strategies unravel under cover of secrecy, America’s neglected citizens would do well to read this book."—Ann Jones, author of They Were Soldiers
"Sobering reading for geopolitics mavens and Risk aficionados alike..." —Kirkus
"McCoy’s detailed, panoramic analysis of the past, present, and future of the American empire covers all spheres of activity including not just land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace, but also the netherworld of covert operations—and seasons all of this with some fascinating personal vignettes. His new book, The Shadows of the American Century, joins the essential short list of scrupulous historical and comparative studies of the United States as an awesome, conflicted, technologically innovative, routinely atrocious, and ultimately hubristic imperial power."—John Dower, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Embracing Defeat, War Without Mercy, and The Violent American Century
“One of our best and most underappreciated historians takes a hard look at the truth of our empire, both its covert activities and the reasons for its impending decline,” —Oliver Stone
"In the Shadows of the American Century is a valuable contribution to geopolitical discourse that drawsimportant lessons from history."—Foreword Reviews
"McCoy’s latest book, In the Shadow of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, provides an autopsy on a dying empire, which has squandered its moral capital by promoting wide-scale torture and mass surveillance....The end of empire scenarios relayed by McCoy in dark terms could in turn provide positive opportunities for societal change as the necessity for constant war is removed." —The Progressive
2017-06-27
If you're American and want to rule the world, get to work immediately. By McCoy's (History/Univ. of Wisconsin; Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State, 2009, etc.) reckoning, you've only got a few years left.The so-called American century has run longer than 100 years. It began, the author argues, in 1898, when the U.S. assumed colonial territories formerly controlled by Spain, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines. It extended throughout the industrialized 20th century and the Cold War but then faltered in the "bid to extend that hegemony deep into the twenty-first century through a fusion of cyberwar, space warfare, trade pacts, and military alliances." Considering that the current occupant of the White House has repudiated such pacts and alliances, it would seem that there are plenty of hard-power options left in terms of sheer military might, but that doesn't get the job done alone. That repudiation, however, is not unnatural. For as long as America has had an empire—and McCoy does not shy from calling it that—there has been an uneasiness, a "profound, persistent ambiguity" about whether a putatively democratic republic ought to be controlling distant countries, whether militarily or through soft-power paths. Meanwhile, our position abroad has been weakened by numerous missteps, as when, in one of the author's examples, the troop surge in Afghanistan had the unintended consequence of alienating country people and pushing them into the arms of a now-resurgent Taliban. McCoy closes with several scenarios for how American hegemony and superpower dominance will fade—and, he urges, "every significant trend points toward a striking decline in American global power by 2030." The likeliest beneficiary would be China, he adds, which makes war a near inevitability. If only a dozen or so years are left, then it's time to start preparing for a post-imperial world—which is unlikely to happen, given the present "inward looking" leadership. Sobering reading for geopolitics mavens and Risk aficionados alike, offering no likely path beyond decline and fall.
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