Article Subjects and Geography: Empire

Foreword to ‘The Exterminating Empire’

Foreword to ‘The Exterminating Empire’

by Jason Hickel

November 1, 2026

In this stirring foreword to Chris Kaspar de Ploeg's The Exterminating Empire (Monthly Review Press, 2026), Jason Hickel decries a world in which cruelty, genocide, and rapacious capitalism have become de rigueur, seemingly with no consequences for the Western elites perpetuating these atrocities in the Global South. "The narrative of 'double standards,'" Hickel writes, "presupposes that they have at least some shred of morality. But they do not. For them there is but one standard: the law of capital."
Legal Imperialism: International Law and Dependency in Late Imperialism

Legal Imperialism: International Law and Dependency in Late Imperialism

by Luís Eduardo Fernandes

October 1, 2026

Today's resurgence in U.S. imperialist interventions abroad and the concomitant so-called crisis of the "rules-based order" can be explained, Luís Eduardo Fernandes argues, through the category of "legal imperialism, which refers to how the international juridical form is internalized within societies and in the context of dependency, colonialism, unequal exchange, and monopoly capital. "International law and imperialism," Fernandes writes, "do not stand as opposing poles. They are part of the same unity.… Violence is constitutive of the juridical form."
U.S. Imperialism Resurgent

U.S. Imperialism Resurgent

by Costas Lapavitsas

July 1, 2026

It is quite evident, Costas Lapavitsas begins, that the world is currently ensnared in geopolitical turmoil, perhaps for over a decade. In this article, Lapavitsas provides insight into the inseparable and interlocking mechanisms of dollar dominance and imperialism backed by the escalatory militarism of the second Trump administration. As Lapavitsas notes: "The dollar and the F-35—monetary coercion and military power—are two moments of a single structure of domination."
The Trump Doctrine and the New MAGA Imperialism

The Trump Doctrine and the New MAGA Imperialism

by John Bellamy Foster

June 1, 2025

In this third installment of MR's series on the MAGA movement, John Bellamy Foster explores the dramatic shift in U.S. imperialism that began with the first Trump presidency and has accelerated in his second. The shift, Foster explains, is not one driven by anti-imperialism and anti-militarism but rather represents a hard shift to the right fueled by hypernationalism and the goal of recapturing U.S. power on the world stage.
The U.S. Ruling Class and the Trump Regime

The U.S. Ruling Class and the Trump Regime

by John Bellamy Foster

April 1, 2025

John Bellamy Foster revisits and critiques the contention that the U.S. capitalist class is not a "governing" class, or indeed a class-conscious bloc in any sense. However, he writes, the fact that the ruling-class oligarchy is now openly wielding power on the national and international stages as part of the Trump regime shows that the overwhelming political influence of the capitalist class is no longer in dispute as this alignment pushes the country deeper into neofascism.
Empire and Popular Arts: A Note on Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s “Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States”

Empire and Popular Arts: A Note on Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s “Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States”

by Dylan Davis, Paul Buhle and Paul Peart-Smith

January 1, 2025

This month, we at MR had the great pleasure of publishing this note on Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz's Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States: A Graphic Interpretation, written by Dylan Davis and Paul Buhle, with illustrations from the book by illustrator Paul Peart-Smith.

April 2024 (Volume 75, Number 11)

April 2024 (Volume 75, Number 11)

by The Editors

April 1, 2024

In a December 2023 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Richard Haass, former special assistant to H. W. Bush, declared that the world has descended into a "new world disorder," lamenting the long-lost dream of unending U.S. hegemony. This month's "Notes from the Editors" reflects on not only Haass's recent statements, but his longstanding advocacy of an "Imperial America" designed to ensure U.S. domination on the world stage.

Giving War a Chance

by Laurence H. Shoup

May 1, 2022

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is the ultimate agenda-setting, strategic planning, and consensus-forming organization of the U.S. capitalist ruling class. The latest book to come out of the CFR orbit, Strategy of Denial (2021), thus provides an opportunity to concretely observe how the monopoly capitalist ruling class is preparing the people of the United States for what could be a catastrophic world war.

Notes from the Editors, April 2022

Notes from the Editors, April 2022

by The Editors

April 1, 2022

As we write these notes at the beginning of March 2022, the eight-year limited civil war in Ukraine has turned into a full-scale war. This represents a turning point in the New Cold War and a great human tragedy. By threatening global nuclear holocaust, these events are also now endangering the entire world. To understand the origins of the New Cold War and the onset of the current Russian entry into the Ukrainian civil war, it is necessary to go back to decisions associated with the creation of the New World Order made in Washington when the previous Cold War ended in 1991.

The Council on Foreign Relations, the Biden Team, and Key Policy Outcomes: Climate and China

The Council on Foreign Relations, the Biden Team, and Key Policy Outcomes: Climate and China

by Laurence H. Shoup

May 1, 2021

We can analyze the new Biden administration, its personnel, and the policies it is likely to follow, especially on the all-important questions of the climate crisis and U.S. grand strategy toward China, by looking at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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