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Reviews
| The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance, by Michael H. Hunt. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. 456 pages. $34.95, cloth.
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| In keeping with the current emphasis on examining American foreign policy from a global perspective, Michael H. Hunt offers a sweeping thematic analysis of how the United States gained and wielded a multi-layered global dominance. Beginning with nineteenth century foundations and tracing this growth to the present, Hunt shows how the United States achieved ascendancy and sufficient power to shape the behavior of other nations. Arguing that history can provide a framework of insights and guidelines for the present, Hunt concludes with a critical perspective on the current state of American global domination. |
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Hunt's discussion of the nineteenth century covers familiar ground in showing how what was a weak and peripheral beginning led to amazing progress. Credit is assigned to a strong state, an economy based on abundant material resources, the subordination of Native Americans, utilization of slave and immigrant labor, and the expulsion of European powers. By 1898, the United States was in a position to make overt steps toward imposing its interests and ideals globally. President Theodore Roosevelt's acquisition of an empire and President Woodrow Wilson's world leadership, regardless of his failures at Versailles, increased presidential power and laid the groundwork for "the exercise of dominance" (p. 69), putting the United States at the center of global capitalism. |
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By the onset of World War II, America had "an unmatched capacity to wage war on a global scale, a strong sense of national mission, and a rich and dynamic economy" (p.114). The ingredients were present for the United States to bid for ascendancy as American victory in World War II brought responsibilities for creating international peace and prosperity, along with the opportunity to extend economic dominance. Marshall Plan aid to Western Europe would be spent on American-made goods, communists would be ousted from governing coalitions, market forces would replace state planning, and labor unions would become more submissive. America had amassed unmatched global military and economic power, and influence leading to supremacy. |
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This postwar American domination of Western Europe did not extend to their former empires because the colonies in the Middle East and Africa gained their independence in the 1950s. The United States found that it could not assume access to critical natural resources. In the contest with the Soviet Union for world dominance, the United States was unwilling to allow radical movements to gain power, especially in Latin America. American paternalism and sense of cultural superiority would also make the United States resistant to non-aligned movements or calls for self-determination that deviated from Western models and threatened our policy of containment of the Soviet Union. After the Cold War, however, American presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton, would become more pragmatic and realistic as they recognized that a global transformation on American terms would no longer be possible. |
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Nevertheless, the author argues that even the neo-liberals when they were in power would not accept a scenario in which the United States would share global power. Thus, in the twenty-first century, "the prime United States goal" would be to stop "any country from reaching a position that would allow it to challenge the United States either in broad global terms or in a narrower regional context" (p. 276). America's sense of entitlement and exceptionalism was clear, for example, at international environmental conferences. The administration of George W. Bush would supplant containment and deterrence with an activist global free market agenda that would also enforce democracy. The Middle East would be the administration's initial focus because Saddam Hussein symbolized defiance and had to be removed. But America soon learned the validity of the warning from military officers and government experts that the United States could defeat Hussein, but could not govern Iraq. |
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Hunt prefers "hegemon," rather than "empire" to describe the power and influence that the United States has wielded since 1945 through military interventions and control over major international monetary institutions. He argues for an American recognition of limitations and a retreat from hegemony toward international cooperation using diplomatic negotiations and a long-term commitment to economic development and human welfare. Though offering an overview of United States foreign policy, Hunt compresses events to the point of reductionism. A case in point is his assertion that the United States "applied pressure until the Soviet Union retreated from its forward position in Europe and then imploded" (p. 311), an argument that ignores internal Soviet issues. His call for an American retreat from global hegemony is perhaps unrealistic. On the whole, though, Hunt offers a stimulating analysis that will lend itself to animated graduate seminar discussions. The narrative assumes too much prior knowledge of American foreign policy for it to be assigned in upper-division United States foreign relations courses. |
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| California State University, Long Beach |
Arlene Lazarowitz |
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