Americans have long believed that
the very notion of empire is an offense against our democratic
heritage, yet in recent months, these two words -- American
empire -- have been on everyone's lips. At this moment of
unprecedented economic and military strength, the leaders of the
United States have embraced imperial ambitions openly. How did
we get to this point? And what lies down the road?
To address these questions, Metropolitan Books offers the
American Empire Project. In these short, argument-driven books,
our leading writers and thinkers will mount an immodest
challenge to the fateful exercise of empire-building and to
explore every facet of the developing American imperium, while
suggesting alternate ways of thinking about, confronting, and
acting in a new American century.
The project has been developed by Tom Engelhardt (www.tomdispatch.com) and
Steve Fraser, two editors with long and distinguished
careers in publishing -- at Pantheon and Basic Books -- who are
themselves historians and writers. In future seasons, Chalmers
Johnson, who made "blowback" a household word, will take on the
far reach of American militarism and what it means to garrison
the planet in The Sorrows of Empire. Michael Klare will
ask, in Blood and Oil, how American dependency on
petroleum drives our strategic planning. And in How to
Succeed at Globalization: A Primer for the Roadside Vendor,
Mexican cartoonist Rafeal Barajas will depict the world economy from the perspective of the very small businessman.
View the list of books |
Sign up
for news & updates
|
