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Acknowledgments

This book would not have been written had I not gone to live in the United States in January 2003. It is the first fruit of what has proved to be a revitalizing transatlantic migration. I arrived in New York with a hypothesis about “American empire” in my luggage. Working in the world metropolis has forced me to do more than unpack it. The result is a synthesis—not just of the published and unpublished works cited in the bibliography, but also of innumerable conversations on the subject of American power, past, present and future. The past is, of course, the proper concern of the historian. However, what I have to say about recent events and possible futures gains, I hope, from being located in what is primarily a work of history. My principal aim is simply to encourage Americans to relate their country’s current predicament to the experiences of empires past. I write not as a carping critic but as an avid admirer of the United States who wants it to succeed in its imperial undertakings and who fears the consequences if it should fail.

More than any previous book I have written, this book is the result of intercourse with people and institutions as well as with published and unpublished texts. My first and largest debt is to New York University, and in particular to the Leonard N. Stern School of Business. When the-then dean of the Stern School, George Daly, suggested that I might like to come and teach at NYU it seemed at first a fantastic idea. It turned out to be a fantastically good idea. I am grateful not only to him but also to his successor, Tom Cooley, as well as to all the faculty and administrative staff at Stern. I owe a special debt to Dick Sylla, whose friendship and intellectual companionship were among the strongest arguments for my move to West Fourth Street, and to Luis Cabral, his successor as chair of the economics department. It is usually invidious to name some names when an entire institution has been so welcoming, but a number of my colleagues at Stern and at NYU deserve special thanks, usually because they com
mented on seminar papers and other writings that eventually mutated into chapters of this book. My thanks, then, to David Backus, Tom Bender, Adam Brandenburger, Bill Easterly, Nicholas Economides, Shepard Forman, Tony Judt, Fabrizio Perri, Tom Sargent, Bill Silber, George Smith, Larry White and Bernard Yeung. Thanks for administrative and secretarial support are also due to Kathleen Collins, Melissa Felci and Janine Lanzisera (in New York), Katia Pisvin (in Oxford) and Maria Sanchez (in Stanford).

After nearly fifteen years of giving undergraduate tutorials and supervisions at Oxford and Cambridge, I approached the challenge of teaching large classes of American graduates with apprehension. It was a relief to find that the experience was not merely painless but pleasurable. Sergio Fonseca and Gopal Tampi did sterling work as my first teaching assistants at Stern. But with such excellent students my duties were very far from burdensome. I should like to thank all those who took my classes; I learned as much from them as they from me. This is an appropriate place, too, for an expression of gratitude to President John Sexton, a truly charismatic pedagogue.

One thing I have come to understand about American academic institutions is that they owe much of their vitality to the continuing involvement of alumni in their affairs. Two in particular gave me both generous support and friendship during my time in New York: William Berkley and John Herzog. To them and their wives, Marjorie and Diana, I shall always be grateful. It was John and Diana who endowed the chair in financial history of which I am the first occupant. To them, by way of thanks, I dedicate this book.

Thanks are also due to the many people who simply made me feel welcome as a new boy in New York—in particular, Martha Bayona, Mike Campisi, Jimmy Casella, Cesar Coronado, Joseph Giordano, Phil Greene, Jorge Lujo, Saleh Muhammed, Hector Rivera, Neville Rodriguez and Giovanni di Salvo.

Last year I was also fortunate to become associated with one of the great American centers of historical research: the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. I would like to thank the director and fellows of the Hoover Institution for electing me to a senior fellowship. They and all the staff at Hoover gave me a wonderfully warm welcome to California last fall—the first, I trust, of many.

A further institutional debt of gratitude is to my alma mater, Oxford
University, which made me a visiting professor, so that I did not wholly vanish from my old haunts last year. I should also like to thank the principal and fellows of Jesus College, Oxford, for electing me to a senior research fellowship, and the master and fellows of Oriel College, for providing me with a study during my visits to Oxford. I owe a particular debt to Jeremy Catto. I have also been extremely fortunate to have had an Oxonian research assistant, the superb Ameet Gill.

Some of the material in this book had its genesis in journalism. Among the editors who showed me the ropes of American newspaper writing, I should like to thank Anne Burrowclough, Erich Eichman, Tony Emerson, Nikolas Gvosdev, Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic, Dean Robinson, Gideon Rose, Allison Silver, Robert Silvers, Zofia Smardz, Tunku Varadarajan, Michael Young and Fareed Zakaria. Thanks also to George Ames, Ric Burns, Peter Kavanagh, Brian Lehrer, Kevin Lucey, Tom Moroney, Peter Robinson and Geoffrey Wawro for some memorable discussions “on air.”

Sections of
Chapter 3
first appeared as “Clashing Civilizations or Mad Mullahs: The United States Between Informal and Formal Empire” in
The Age of Terror
, edited by Strobe Talbott (Basic Books, 2001). Sections of
Chapter 5
were published as “The British Empire and Globalization” in
Historically Speaking
. Sections of
Chapter 6
were first published as “The Empire Slinks Back” in
The New York Times Magazine
and “True Lies” in
The New Republic
. Finally, sections of
Chapter 8
were coauthored by Laurence Kodikoff and appeared as “Going Critical: The Consequences of American Fiscal Overstretch” in the fall 2003 issue of
The National Interest
. I am grateful to all those journals for allowing me to reprint the passages in question.

Other parts of the book have been improved by being read in draft by others. Richard Cooper spotted numerous flaws in a draft of the introduction. Eric Rauchway kindly cast his eye over the earlier chapters and helped to improve my freshman-level American history.
Chapter 4
owed much to the friendship and counsel of Diego Arria. Judith Brown offered invaluable suggestions for
Chapter 6
.
Chapter 7
was read in draft and much improved by my friends Timothy Garton Ash of St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and Martin Thomas at the Bank of England.
Chapter 8
was significantly reshaped in light of comments by David Hale and Deirdre McCloskey on an earlier version delivered as a lecture at the Chicago Humanities Festival, as well as conversations with Ronald McKinnon at Stanford.

Many others deserve thanks for having read and commented on drafts, for having listened and responded to seminar papers or for having proffered hospitality during the writing of the book. My gratitude to Graham Allison, Anne Applebaum, Chris Bassford, Max Boot, Amy Chua, Gordon Cravitz, Larry Diamond, Gerald Dorfman, Maureen Dowd, Michael Edelstein, Frank and Ronita Egger, Gerry and Norma Feldman, Marc Flandreau, Ben and Barbara Friedman, Andrew and Barbara Gundlach, John Hall, Patrick Hatcher, Paul Heinbecker, Michael Ignatieff, Harold James, Robert Kagan, Harry Kreisler, Melvyn Leffler, Peter Lindert, Eileen Mackevich, Charles Maier, Norman Naimark, Joseph Nye, Patrick O’Brien, Kevin O’Rourke, Lynn and Evelyn de Rothschild, Simon Schama, Moritz Schularick, Peter Schwartz, Zach Shore, Radek Sikorski, Lawrence Summers, Giuseppe Tattara, Alan M. Taylor, Mike Tomz, Marc Weidenmier, Barry Weingast, James Wolfensohn, Ngaire Woods and Minky Worden.