Colossus - The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

Ferguson's Colossus charts America's rise as a world power, and issues a dire warning about its future. Is America the new world empire? Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush may have denied it but, as Niall Ferguson's brilliant and provocative book shows, the United States is in many ways the greatest imperial power of all time. What's more, it always has been an empire, expanding westwards throughout the nineteenth century and rising to global dominance in the twentieth. But is today's American colossus really equipped to play Atlas, bearing the weight of the world on its shoulders? The United States, Ferguson reveals, is an empire running on empty, weakened by chronic defecits of money, manpower and political will. When the New Rome falls, he warns, its collapse may come from within...