Product Description

Covers the history of the Americans and Russians from the Vikings to Iraq. This work shows the two empires developed in parallel as they expanded to the Pacific and launched wars against the nations around them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #451767 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

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• Mint Condition
• Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
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Review
I have read Empires Apart with great enjoyment. Brian Landers has written a piercing account of American history from its colonial beginnings to its present role as an unacknowledged empire that bestrides the world. Concerned as he is to expose the myths that nations create about themselves, he bases his analysis upon a revealing comparison of American and Russian expansion through the centuries. This technique forces the observer to recognise similarities, identify differences and question why both similarities and differences exist. In a sense, then, the reader gets two books for the price of one, Russian history as well as American. --Andreas Whittam Smith

A most enjoyable and intelligent book. Brian Landers constructs a tightly argued analysis, and never loses a beguiling narrative drive. --Tim Waterstone

Simply staggering in vision, depth, development of ideas and detailed research. And it's also very readable and approachable, The analysis along the way is very revealing and a challenge to accepted thinking. --Sir Roger Martin

From the Publisher
The Iraq War has led to widespread condemnation of American foreign policy - often coupled with the assertion that in invading Iraq the United States has abandoned the principles upon which its greatness is based. At the same time, critics have been derided for their crude anti-Americanism. The United States, it is claimed, has been throughout its history a selfless defender of democracy, in sharp contrast to tyrannies elsewhere. The Cold War victory over Russia is used to remind us that it was the US that saved the world from the claws of the 'Evil Empire'.

'Empires Apart' is a well argued balanced addition - correction, even to these arguments. The author contends that far from the Iraq War being an aberration, America's road to Baghdad started when the first Englisman landed on Roanoke Island, musket in hand. He shows how Americans conquered their way across a continent to the Pacific and beyond so that by the end of the Spanish-American War they controlled an empire stretching from Cuba to Hawaii and the Philippines. In this, he maintains there are exact parallels with Russia - at the same time that the British were crossing the Atlantic, Russians were crossing the Urals and conquering their way to the Pacific.

Brian Landers establishes that the difference between the American and Russian Empires is that by the end of the nineteenth century, American settlers conquering new territories were replaced by American corporations conquering new markets - but still with US marine support.

In 'Empires Apart', he uncovers the real story behind the growth of the American Empire from the first 9/11 style terrorist attacks launched against the natives by the early Puritans, to the disastrous Polar Bear Expedition against the Bolsheviks and the 'regime changes' of the twentieth century.

Uniquely, Landers shows how the broad sweep of American history follows a consistent path from the first settlers to the present day and by comparing this with Russia's path - frankly labelled 'imperial' by the Russian Tsars - demonstrates the true nature of America's global ambitions. In doing so, he uncovers the nation's hidden history - slave raids targeting Spanish missionaries, the first US attack on Libya in 1815, the workers soviet that briefly claimed to control the city of Seattle in 1919, the destruction of Iranian democracy in 1953, the choreographed murder of Che Guevara.

Landers' book will entertain and educate, amuse and alarm, shame and shock. Everyone will learn something new; no one will have their beliefs unchallenged.

In summary, Landers:

- demonstrates the remarkable parallels between American history and the expansion of the Russian Empire

- demonstrates the importance of the rise of the Corporation in transforming the way America related to nations around it and the wider world

- depicts numerous new and challenging insights in American history

- explains how the dogmas of the early English settlers started the United States inexorably down the road to Iraq.

With very great pleasure, Picnic Publishing expects to submit 'Empires Apart' to the Gladstone History Book and Orwell Prizes for consideration.

From the Author
My book is to be published in May 2009: 27 May is the anniversary of the Mystic Massacre of 1637 which is one of the key events I identify. Professor Sir Andrew Likierman of the London Business School and Andreas Whittam Smith have kindly agreed to read proof copies.

So, why this book? Well, I give a business view of how business interests changed history - a growing academic discipline. There are, of course, numerous books on either Russia or America but I don't know of any contrasting both - this is the challenge I set myself and address in Empires Apart. Similarly, there are lots of books on Iraq and modern American politics but I don't know any that place the conflict in the context of US history as a whole.

Although writing from a different political position, Niall Ferguson, as a celebrant of the American Empire, covers some of the same ground (for example about the American revolution)in 'Colossus' (Penguin, 2005). I quote frequently from him. However, my advantages are: the unique comparative insights gained from the Russian Empire, a more challenging political position than Ferguson, and the fact that events in Iraq make his work seem dated.

Noam Chomsky is the writer whose political views are closest to mine and I also quote frequently from him - in particular his'Failed States' and 'Imperial Ambitions' published by Hamish Hamilton, 2006 and 2005 respectively.

Assuming those interested in my book will all be interested in current affairs or history, the following comments may also be helpful:

- In 'Among Empires: American Ascendancy and its Predecessors' (Harvard University Press, 2006), Charles Maier provides an academic definition of empires with numerous histrorical examples. He starts by asking himself whether the US 'has become or is becoming an empire?' (A question he avoids directly answering.) His is a comparative historical study covering numerous other empires - for example, Roman, Spanish, British and, in passing, Russian but he does not forcibly draw the parallels I see between Russian and American imperialism. His approach is strictly academic, assessing the costs and benefits of America's current global ascendancy. As Niall Ferguson says on the cover blurb, Maier demonstrates a 'scrupulous ambivalence' - very different from my book!

- In 'The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War', OUP 2005, Andrew Bacevich argues as a Conservative West Point graduate that the desire of the US to spread the American way of life across the globe is a new obsession uniting utopianism and militarism. He believes this emerged as a response to the failures of the Vietnam War. His analysis of the current position is sound. His warnings about the dangers and futility of the current crusading imperialism are compelling but the essence of my book is that this is not a new obsession - rather it started when the first English settlers landed in North America. I believe that Bacevich's objective of returning America to the original ideals of the Founding Fathers betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of history.

- In 'America's Inadvertent Empire' (Yale University Press, 2005), Wiliam Odon argues that not only is the American Empire a new empire, it is a wholly new form of empire. It replaces the naked exploitation of all previous empires with a voluntary empire generating wealth for all and operating under the rule of law. By showing the centuries-long continuity of American imperialism, 'Empires Apart' illustrates the absurdity of this position.

- Joseph Nye is probably the writer whose vision of the American Empire is most sympathetic. (See 'The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go it Alone', OUP 2003.) Nye wants American global ambition to rely on what he calls 'soft power' - the attractiveness of American institutions, values and culture - all factors intimately related to the corporatist version of democracy. Although he wants to move away from the use of military and economic muscle, I believe his underlying assumption of ideological superiority represents a much older American tradition - as I show.

- Stephen Burman's 'The State of the American Empire: How the USA Shapes the World' (Earthscan. 2007) covers some of the same factual aspects of the current American Empire as 'Empires Apart' but is essentially a reference book. It has large numbers of diagrams, graphs and maps and takes the imperial story right up to the Iraq war.

I hope the above is helpful. I can be contacted via my publishers or, in due course, the Empires Apart website.