The Imperial Moment

Suggesting that even if it can be argued that the United States pursues imperial policies it might be a mistake to think that it is an empire at the height of its powers as opposed to perhaps merely a powerful state that is in the process of becoming an empire (citing a lack of specifically imperial institutions), Kagan (president, Institute for the Study of War) presents five historical case studies examining the processes by which ancient Athens, Rome, Great Britain, Qing China, and Russia transitioned to empire, together with one chapters focusing on the current American moment (in a world that has supposedly moved "beyond imperialism"). In her conclusion, Kagan argues that the imperial moment comes when the powerful state takes actions to clarify that weaker states are fully subordinate to the powerful state within the interstate system and, by doing so, introduces second-order changes to the interstate system. Prior to that moment the state in question had acquired significant military power relative to other states from a variety of factors, but it wasn't until the leaders of these states sought to establish the principle of supremacy in reaction to weaker states' expressions of autonomy that they truly became empires. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)