The New Imperialism. (Comment)

Hartung, William D., The Nation

In my days as a student activist in the 1970s, the use of the term "imperialism" to describe US policy was generally used only in the antiwar and international solidarity movements, the writings of left-wing academics or the newspapers of small socialist splinter groups. Three decades later, the notion of American empire is gaining a degree of mainstream respectability, this time promoted by a strange convergence of right-wing unilateralists and humanitarian interventionists who see unbridled American power as the last, best hope for building a more stable world.

The most egregious recent example of this trend was the glaring red, white and blue cover story in the New York Times Magazine of January 5, "American Empire (Get Used to It)," in which Michael Ignatieff suggests that Americans are in "deep denial" over their country's imperial role and are therefore ill equipped to understand a central reality of our brave new post-9/11 world. Ignatieff …

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Publication information: Article title: The New Imperialism. (Comment). Contributors: Hartung, William D. - Author. Magazine title: The Nation. Volume: 276. Issue: 6 Publication date: February 17, 2003. Page number: 5. © 1999 The Nation Company L.P. COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group.

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