Abstract

Despite Washington's military supremacy, its economic foundations have been weakening since the Vietnam war – accelerated by the great recession and credit-rating downgrade – and its global authority dented by the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This book intervenes in the debates surrounding America's status as an empire. It analyses Immanuel Wallerstein and others who argue that the US is in decline, to those who maintain that it remains a robust superpower. By explaining how America's neo-imperial system of governance has been working since WWII, it links the US's domestic and foreign vulnerabilities.

The Fall of the US Empire argues that the time has come to understand the US empire not by its power but by its systemic vulnerabilities of financialisation, resource depletion and environmental degradation.
'The authors display an impressive mastery of the relevant theoretical literature without ignoring the factual details of the current financial and economic crisis'
Ben Fowkes
'A major addition to the literature on the decline of US hegemony'
Donald Sassoon, Professor of Comparative European History, Queen Mary University of London
'This absorbing book makes a remarkable contribution to the current version of this very important debate, while revisiting its previous versions ... stimulating reading'
Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London
'Ambitious... offers an historically informed alternative to mainstream readings of the crisis'
Engelbert Stockhammer, Professor of Economics, Kingston University
'Stimulating and challenging'
Mike Newman, Emeritus Professor of Politics and Jean Monnet Professor of European Studies, London Metropolitan University
'A coherent and theoretically informed account of the changing balance of global power'
Professor Costas Lapavitsas, SOAS, University of London