Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

Author(s): Niall Ferguson

American

Is America the new world empire? Presidents from Lincoln to Bush may have denied it but, as Niall Ferguson's brilliant and provocative book shows, the US is the greatest military and economic colossus of all time. What's more, it always has been an empire, with its founding fathers battling westwards for territory and their successors spreading freedom across the world - at gunpoint if necessary. Yet is the US really equipped to play Atlas, bearing the weight of the world on its shoulders? America, Ferguson reveals, is now an empire running on empty, backing away from the crucial imperial commitments of time, money and manpower - and resting on perilous financial foundations. When the New Rome falls, its collapse may come from within.


Product Information

Colossus confirms Niall Ferguson's standing as one of the most incisive writers of history, politics and economics today Sunday Telegraph One of the timeliest and most topical books to have appeared in recent years Literary Review Yet another tour de force from a writer who displays all his usual gifts of forceful polemic, unconventional intelligence and elegant prose ... guaranteed to spark fierce debate Irish Times A bravura exploration of why Americans are not cut out to be imperialists but nonetheless have an empire. Vigorous, substantive, and worrying -- Timothy Garton Ash

Niall Ferguson is Professor of International History at Harvard University, Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His other books for Penguin are The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, The Cash Nexus and Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World.

General Fields

  • : 9780141017006
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : 0.308
  • : June 2005
  • : 198mm X 129mm X 23mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Niall Ferguson
  • : Paperback
  • : New ed
  • : 327.73
  • : 416
  • : International relations; American history
  • : Illustrations