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Discussion Forum : News and Current Events : Leading Historian Says U.S. ‘Empire’ To Fail

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habakkuk3
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Joined: 2005/10/18
Posts: 490
Virginia

 Leading Historian Says U.S. ‘Empire’ To Fail

The American empire may actually cause disorder, barbarism, and chaos rather than promote peace and order, one of the world’s leading historians, Eric J. Hobsbawm, explained last night to a packed crowd at Lowell Lecture Hall.

While he didn’t take a final stance on that issue, Hobsbawm’s lecture on the differences between the American empire and the British empire was notable for his assertion that America is an empire destined for failure.

While many other historians do not consider America to be an empire, Hobsbawm argued yesterday that it is.

Concepts of imperialism and empire are “in flat contradiction to the traditional political self-definition of the U.S.A.,” Hobsbawm said, however, “there is no precedent for the global supremacy that the U.S. government is trying to establish.”

The American empire “will almost certainly fail,” Hobsbawm said. “Will the U.S. learn the lesson [of the British Empire] or will it try to maintain an eroding global position by relying on a failing political force and a military force which is insufficient for the present purposes which the current American government claims it is designed?”

Hobsbawm addressed America’s past and present foreign policy in his speech, the second of three William E. Massey lectures this week sponsored by Harvard’s Program in the History of American Civilization.

This year’s theme, crafted by Professor of History Sven Beckert, is the “American Empire in Global Perspective,” and features speeches from the perspective of three foreigners, Hobsbawm, who is from England, Jayati Ghosh, from India, and Carlos Monsivais, from Mexico.

Past Massey lecturers have included, Richard Rorty, Toni Morrison, Gore Vidal, and Alfred Kazin.

Mentioning the work of Tisch Professor of History Niall C. Ferguson and Weatherhead University Professor Samuel P. Huntington, Hobsbawm drew clear distinctions between his owns views and their theories.

“Unlike people like me, he regrets it,” Hobsbawm said, referring to Ferguson’s opinion of the end of the American empire.

He spoke at length on the crucial differences between the American hegemony and the British empire, focusing on their different foundations. Britain had an economy-based empire and never tried to dominate the world, he said, realizing that “they were a middle-weight country” that could only hold on to the “heavy-weight title” for so long.

The U.S. empire, on the other hand, was not created through economic dominance but crafted through political means, according to Hobsbawm. He pointed to this as the U.S.’s “biggest strength and weakness,” since the political forces that hold the empire together may not necessarily last.

He said that from its roots in the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. has never viewed itself as a part of an international system of rival political powers. It lacks a foundation myth, Hobsbawm said, which is the basis for most other current nation states.

“Since the U.S.A. was founded by revolution against Britain, the only continuity between them that was not shaken was culture,” he explained, “so the national identity couldn’t very well be historical...[rather] it had to be constructed out of its revolutionary ideology.”

After graduating from the University of Cambridge in 1939, Hobsbawm went on to hold teaching positions at the University of London, the New School, Stanford, MIT, and Cornell. His most acclaimed book, “The Age of Extremes”—a history of the 20th century—has been translated into 36 languages.

[b]“Faced with the question of the future of the American empire, Hobsbawm concluded: I’m an historian, I’m not a prophet. Don’t ask me that question.” [/b]

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509241


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Ed Pugh

 2005/10/21 11:15Profile
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Joined: 2002/12/11
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 Re: Leading Historian Says U.S. ‘Empire’ To Fail

Brother,

What a tremendous thread. It fits right in I believe with this thread started about the Power of Prayer the sermon preached by Keith Daniel. "unless the people of God get on their knees in prayer...." its not a threat but this nation is spirling downwards very fast. We need to pray!

"America is too young to die" is a great book by Leonard Ravenhill that is now out of print.


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2005/10/21 11:22Profile
rookie
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Joined: 2003/6/3
Posts: 4821
Savannah TN

 Re:

What is it that the men of this nation-state strive for? Is the substance of their hope in God or mammon? If mammon then they are destine to fall. The Holy Scripture teach this. The kings of this earth fornicate with the whore Babylon. The wine of this fornication makes the masses of men drunk. The fruit of this wine promotes envy, greed, striving, and then war.


So then who is behind the great whore Babylon?
In Christ
Jeff


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Jeff Marshalek

 2005/10/21 11:37Profile
habakkuk3
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Joined: 2005/10/18
Posts: 490
Virginia

 Re: Prayer

Yes Brother Greg,

I believe we should pray for judgment unto repentance. That's a very dangerous prayer and one that should not lightly be entered into because once I say Lord deal with the sin in America, the Holy Spirit is going to ask the question "Can I deal with the sin in your heart and will you confess it and repent from it once I reveal it to you?"

If I want to pray for the sin in America and not deal with my own sin, then my prayers become self-righteous and my words drop to the ground. (I'm not talking here about walking in known sin but the deeper sins such as the pride, the self-righteousness, the critical spirit, and the like).

1 Peter 4:17-17 For the time [is come] that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if [it] first [begin] at us, what shall the end [be] of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?


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Ed Pugh

 2005/10/21 13:05Profile
Rahman
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Joined: 2004/3/24
Posts: 1374


 Re:



Br. Greg wrote;
"unless the people of God get on their knees in prayer"

i think it's even more critical than "knees" now ... Like the book of Joel states, we need to get on
our faces - beginning with leadership first!

 2005/10/21 13:28Profile
Rahman
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Joined: 2004/3/24
Posts: 1374


 Re:


habakkuk3 ...

Wise words indeed, which i concur with whole-heartedly out of personal experience ...

At the beginning of 2004 our Lord began to make me keenly aware of the depth of my sins and how much they hurt Him. Then He said, "Multiply that times billions" and it put such a sadness in my spirit that i actually cried the rest of that year ... Everytime i thought about it tears would well up in my eyes ... Everytime i'd see someone just blatantly shake their fist in the face of His sovereignty it would send me into weeping ... If i dwell on it to long, even now i still mist up ... It's amazing to me how much crap our Creator takes from His created ...

i now have this ever present sense with me now that i don't ever want to willingly, or wilfully hurt Jesus, or grieve Holy Spirit anymore ... i want to be a part of His solution, and not a part of His problem, and therefore my prayer is that He correct us ALL to repentance, beggining with this vessel first ... Amen

 2005/10/21 13:31Profile





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