American Empire

"One of BBC History Magazine's Books of the Year" A. G. Hopkins is Emeritus Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History at the University of Cambridge and former Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. His books include Global History: Interactions between the Universal and the Local; Globalization in World History; British Imperialism, 1688–2015; and An Economic History of West Africa. He lives in Cambridge, England.
A new history of the United States that turns American exceptionalism on its head

American Empire is a panoramic work of scholarship that presents a bold new global perspective on the history of the United States. Drawing on his expertise in economic history and the imperial histories of Britain and Europe, A. G. Hopkins takes readers from the colonial era to today to show how, far from diverging, the United States and Western Europe followed similar trajectories throughout this long period, and how America's dependency on Britain and Europe extended much later into the nineteenth century than previously understood.

In a sweeping narrative spanning three centuries, Hopkins describes how the revolt of the mainland colonies was the product of a crisis that afflicted the imperial states of Europe generally, and how the history of the American republic between 1783 and 1865 was a response not to the termination of British influence but to its continued expansion. He traces how the creation of a U.S. industrial nation-state after the Civil War paralleled developments in Western Europe, fostered similar destabilizing influences, and found an outlet in imperialism through the acquisition of an insular empire in the Caribbean and Pacific. The period of colonial rule that followed reflected the history of the European empires in its ideological justifications, economic relations, and administrative principles. After 1945, a profound shift in the character of globalization brought the age of the great territorial empires to an end.

American Empire goes beyond the myth of American exceptionalism to place the United States within the wider context of the global historical forces that shaped the Western empires and the world. "[American Empire] is a slow-burning but high-impact argument encompassing almost the entire sweep of the history of the United States from the Seven Years War to its most recent war of choice. . . . With his gift for witty summations, his serious investment in comparison, and his dispassionate outsider's view on the pieties of American history, Hopkins has rendered the topic of American empire not merely interesting but truly compelling again."---David Armitage, Times Literary Supplement "Hopkins is a master of storytelling on a grand scale, and the narrative abounds with moments--the little known life story of Harry Washington, one of George Washington's slaves; the siege of British-occupied Kut, Iraq, in 1915--that resonate across the centuries. . . . This is a good book." "A doggedly detailed history of imperial America, beginning before the establishment of the republic and continuing to the present. . . . A definitive account of a complex subject that's hard to pin down." "Mr. Hopkins deserves credit for tackling so vast and demanding a subject."---Aram Bakshian Jr., Washington Times "Hopkins's provocative study will be ofvalue to international relations specialists."---L.M. Lees, Choice "[I]n this immense, feisty, delightfully pugilistic book, one can't help but appreciate [Hopkins'] intellectual fireworks, his depth of reading, and his conviction that history sits as the exacting judge of even emperors."---Joseph Fronczak, Jacobin "Sweeping, ambitious and hugely illuminating, [this] book is surely the definitive account of perhaps the most underestimated 'European' empire of all."---Dominic Sandbrook, BBC History Magazine "Compelling, provocative, and learned. This book is a stunning and sophisticated reevaluation of the American empire.