The Limits of Empire: The United States and Southeast Asia Since World War II
- ISBN-10
- 0231108818
- ISBN-13
- 9780231108812
- Series
- The Limits of Empire
- Category
- Asia
- Pages
- 276
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1999
- Publisher
- Columbia University Press
- Authors
- Robert J. McMahon, Robert McMahon
Description
In the years following World War II, as the United States began to focus on the global containment of communism, few regions of the world were considered as much of a potential battleground as Southeast Asia. Robert McMahon contends that policymakers exaggerated the significance of the region within the global power balance, dangerously overextending the United States and resulting in the tragedy of the Vietnam War.The first book to situate the Vietnam War in its broad, regional context, The Limits of Empire offers the most complete picture to date of how U.S. strategies of containment and empire-building spiraled out of control in Southeast Asia. Additionally, McMahon's analysis goes further than any previous study of U.S. security policy in Southeast Asia by following it through to the present, investigating how the demoralizing experience of Vietnam radically undermined U.S. enthusiasm for the region in a strategic sense. By conceptualizing the U.S. strategic mission as empire-building rather than merely containment, this book offers an insightful new way to understand America's failure in Vietnam--and also why this grim miscalculation did not lead to the balance-of-power catastrophe that some U.S. officials had forecasted. The Limits of Empire touches upon such broad theoretical concerns as the appeal of nationalist, anti-Western currents to Third World peoples; the inadequacy of empires as a means of asserting control over non-Western peoples; and the chasm between America's postwar ambitions and the sobering realization of the limits of its power.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 1999
- 276 pages
- Paperback
- Columbia University Press
-
- 2008
- 162 pages
- Paperback
- Lit Verlag
Similar books
-
Theodosius and the Limits of Empire
By Mark HebblewhiteSwain, S. & Edwards, M. (eds.) (2004) Approaching Late Antiquity: The Transformation from Early to ... S. Swain & M. Edwards (2004), 156–186. Wienand, J. (ed.) ... Williams, S. & Friell, G. (1994) Theodosius: The Empire at Bay. London.
-
Arminius: The Limits of Empire
By Robert FabbriOne man's greatest victory. Rome's greatest defeat. A.D. 9: In the depths of the Teutoburg Wald, in a landscape riven by ravines, darkened by ancient oak and bisected by fast-flowing...
-
LIMITS OF EMPIRE: Sub- Imperialism and Pukhtun Resistance in the North- West Frontier
By SAMEETAH. AGHALIMITS OF EMPIRE: Sub- Imperialism and Pukhtun Resistance in the North- West Frontier
-
Limits of Empire: Rome's Borders
By Simon Forty, Jonathan FortyOthers, such as these two great rivers, were natural borders that the Romans policed with their navy. This book examines these frontiers of the empire, looking at the way they were constructed and manned and how that changed over the years.
-
The Limits of Empire: European Imperial Formations in Early Modern World History: Essays in Honor of Geoffrey Parker
By Professor Tonio Andrade, Professor William RegerThis volume, published in honor of historian Geoffrey Parker, explores the working of European empires in a global perspective, focusing on one of the most important themes of Parker’s work: the limits of empire, which is to say, the ...
-
Opium and the Limits of Empire: Drug Prohibition in the Chinese Interior, 1729-1850
By David Anthony BelloThe British opium trade along China's seacoast has come to symbolize China's century-long descent into political and social chaos. In the standard historical narrative, opium is the primary medium through...
-
John Dee: Essential Readings
By Gerald SusterAlthough revered in his own time, John Dee (1527-1608) was until recently regarded as an isolated crank on the margins of Tudor history.
-
The Eastern Frontier: Limits of Empire in Late Antique and Early Medieval Central Asia
By Robert HaugHowever, in this book, Robert Haug argues for a pre-modern Central Asia with a discrete identity, a region that is not just a transitory space or the far-flung corner of empires, but its own historical entity.
-
The Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan: Rule and Resistance in the Hindu Kush, Circa 600 BCE-600 CE
By Richard E. Payne, Rhyne KingThis volume explores how successive imperial regimes established enduring forms of domination spanning the highlands of the Hindu Kush, essentially ungovernable territories in the absence of the technologies of the modern state.
-
Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study
By C. R. WhittakerIn Frontiers of the Roman Empire, C. R. Whittaker examines the Roman frontiers both in terms of what they meant to the Romans and in their military, economic, and social function.