Illustration by Jason Smith; ©2007 Endeavors.
Beyond empire
by Mark Derewicz
Uncle Sam’s long shadow.
The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance. By Michael H. Hunt. The University of North Carolina Press, 324 pages, $34.95.
When historian Michael Hunt
reflected on our confusing times, he thought that historical perspective—not think-tank policy wonks—could best illuminate current events. So he wrote The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance, the story of a fragile country growing into the most influential and beloved nation in history. But this story isn’t over, Hunt says. In fact, the plot is thickening.
Hunt traced U.S. history and found three major themes to sum up the country’s rise: the advent of consumer society, national pride, and the development of a strong modern state with a knack for pursuing goals with deliberation and patience, not to mention a fair amount of luck and timing.
All these themes have their roots in the nineteenth century. Hunt says our consumer society is an American invention that other nations admired even more than our political system.
After World War II, the United States clearly had the world’s leading economy, thanks in part to the free trade agreements that kick-started globalization as we know it today. Meanwhile, the United States claimed the political high ground, leading the reconstruction of Europe and Japan while holding the Soviet Union at bay. The United States was the driving force behind the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Court, and various aid programs for U.S. citizens and countries in need.
“Essentially, the United States set up an international system,” Hunt says. “And none of that would’ve happened without a strong modern state.”
In this system, the United States grew beyond empire and into hegemony, a word Hunt says best describes the sort of economic, cultural, political, and military powerhouse that it has become.
But as this evolution was taking place, Hunt says, the U.S. presidency gained the sort of strength that the Founding Fathers feared.
Hunt says that William McKinley was the first president to figure out how to manipulate public opinion. “He had a very sophisticated White House with people analyzing newspapers with purpose. It was McKinley who figured out that war helped extend presidential power.”
McKinley didn’t seek war with Spain in 1898; it was Congress who pushed for it at first. McKinley acquiesced and then realized that the United States could control the Philippines, Cuba, Guam, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, essentially making the United States an empire, which rekindled the debate between imperialism and anti-imperialism that dates back to Jefferson and Hamilton.
The United States never stopped involving itself abroad, and presidential power continued to expand. One of the best examples, Hunt says, is that Congress no longer uses its Constitutional power to declare war; it instead votes to transfer its authority to the president, who then decides whether or not to use such power.
“We haven’t used that Constitutional provision since Pearl Harbor,” Hunt says. “But we’ve had many wars.”
Such a strong presidency is one reason why the United States has had an ad hoc foreign policy, leading us into regional conflicts while fomenting distrust even among our closest allies. And Hunt says the so-called War on Terror has only compounded the problems.
“During the past thirty years, we have not tried to sustain the international organization we helped create after World War II,” he says. “In fact, there’s a kind of contempt for human rights, the international legal system, and environmental management that should be part of a hegemon’s obligations. And by being cavalier and negligent, we’ve undermined our credibility in every part of the world.”
When Hunt was finishing his book, he thought he’d end by detailing the United States’ unique place as a not-so-beloved hegemon. He gave this draft to Marilyn Young, a long-time colleague who, Hunt says, “gave my conclusion a withering critique.”
Historians don’t predict the future, he says, but Young’s critique made sense—America’s story isn’t over, and there’s enough evidence to suggest that this country could choose from various paths.
So he reflected, and wound up writing a provocative conclusion. The United States, he says, could retreat into isolation, although that would spell economic doom at home and abroad. And, with its imperial president, it could continue to manage the world’s affairs to its liking, and then deal with the consequences as we have been.
Hunt, though, says the best path might be the least likely—collaborative internationalism, which means that the United States would engage in a genuinely cooperative relationship with other nations instead of the cautious opportunism that has been all too common during the last half of the twentieth century.
But collaborative internationalism, Hunt admits, would require a more cosmopolitan understanding of other cultures, a more sophisticated grasp of U.S. limits, and a better informed and engaged citizenry, just to name a few.
There were times in the United States’ story when she met these standards. How our nation measures up to them in the near future, Hunt says, could determine the fate of the republic and empire and hegemony.
Michael Hunt is the Everett H. Emerson professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Learn more:
- michael hunt
- the american ascendancy
- “empire, hegemony, and the U.S. policy mess” (by michael hunt)
- chalmers johnson article on “blowback”
- browse our archive for more Endeavors stories in history
