Pox Americana: Exposing the American Empire

This volume brings together the work of leading Marxist analysts of imperialism to examine the burning question of our time—the nature and prospects of the U.S. imperial project currently being given shape by war and occupation in the Middle East.

Immanuel Wallerstein, Peter Gowan, and others discuss the dynamics at work behind the “War on Terrorism.” Their analyses locate recent developments within a longer historical arc, and set out the central questions for research and debate: Is U.S. unilateralism and militarism a sign of the increasing strength of the world’s only remaining superpower? Or a desperate response to the erosion of the strategy it developed for ensuring its leadership over the advanced capitalist world during the Cold War? Essays by Barbara Epstein, Amiya Kumar Bagchi and others also examine the prospects for the resistance to imperialism in the United States and globally.

Pox Americana brings together a range of insights and perspectives that were initially presented at a conference in Burlington, Vermont, to honor Harry Magdoff on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. It is a fitting tribute to Magdoff’s pioneering analyses of U.S. imperialism and a testimony to the resilience and fruitfulness of the radical tradition.

Table of Contents

Preface by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney

PART ONE: U.S. Imperialism Has a Long History

1. Kipling, the “White Man’s Burden,” and U.S. Imperialism by Harry Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney
2. Imperial Ambition by Noam Chomsky, interviewed by David Barsamian
3. The Grid of History: Cowboys and Indians by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
4. U.S. Weakness and the Struggle for Hegemony by Immanuel Wallerstein

PART TWO: The Geopolitics and Political Economy of U.S. Imperialism

5. The New Geopolitics by Michael Klare
6. U.S. Hegemony Today by Peter Gowan
7. The Global Minotaur by Joseph Halevi and Yanis Varoufakis
8. The Two Wings of the Eagle by William K. Tabb

PART THREE: Resistance

9. Confronting the Empire by Samir Amin
10. The Parameters of Resistance by Amiya Kumar Bagchi
11. Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism? by William Fletcher, Jr.
12. Prospects for Anti-Imperialism: Coming to Terms with Our Own Bourgeoisie by Sam Gindin
13. Notes on the Antiwar Movement by Barbara Epstein
14. Construction of an Enemy by Eleanor Stein
15. Homeland Imperialism: Fear and Resistance by Bernardine Dohrn
16. The New Age of Imperialism by John Bellamy Foster

John Bellamy Foster is professor of sociology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, author of Marx’s Ecology and Ecology Against Capitalism, and co-editor of Monthly Review. Robert W. McChesney is professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Our Media, Not Theirs, and The Problem of the Media.