Among the powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the making of a new world empire, by Eliga H Gould

Abstract

Eliga H Gould Among the powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the making of a new world empire Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. 344 pp $45.00 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-6740-4608-5Americans have long struggled determine the relationship between international law and US foreign and defence policy. The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and the practice of targeted killings by unmanned aerial vehicles continue arouse international opposition at a time when the United States is still in a position define international legal norms. Eliga Gould's Among the Powers of the Earth demonstrates that, in the distant past, Washington did not enjoy such a position of international power and legitimacy; European powers defined such norms, and in so doing circumscribed US policy, both foreign and domestic. It would be more accurate, Gould demonstrates, to say that the Revolution enabled Americans the history that other people were prepared let them make (13).Among the Powers of the Earth is an account of the United States' early engagement with the laws and customs of Europe as it pursued its own national independence, both legally (i.e., from Britain) and practically in international relations. Gould takes a long view of this process, tracing it from the 1756-1763 Seven Years' War the promulgation of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. The University of New Hampshire academic is one of a growing group of historians and political scientists who are eschewing the post-1945 focus in the study of US foreign relations and turning their attention the early Republic. In so doing, they not only enhance our understanding of this frequently neglected period of US history but also illuminate the historical roots of contemporary policy issues and surviving traditions and myths.Gould's central argument is that early US leaders were motivated by a desire be seen as by the European powers (12). The international legal norms of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries depended upon leaders agreeing that their governments would recognize the rights and freedoms of other European states. To be treaty-worthy, leaders had both participate diplomatically in developing the legal ecosystem of treaties and prove themselves capable of enforcing the provisions of treaties they signed. In return, treaty-worthy states could expect that others would respect their borders, trade rights, and the rights of their citizens worldwide (24-25).This focus on legal history and the concept of treaty-worthiness as a means of understanding the United States' initial engagement with the world is both innovative and illuminating. Gould, however, overstates his case in suggesting that his focus provides the most valuable lens through which view early US history. Though legal history is important, economic questions also deserve consideration in assessing the extent of US international agency and the degree which other powers constrained US sovereignty. In the relationship with Britain, for example, the resource-rich Americans enjoyed disproportionate leverage and autonomy by virtue of their trading power.The roots of the American Revolution, Gould argues, can be found in the Seven Years' War. The spread of European conflict North America compelled Britain reduce the autonomy of its subjects in the colonies, consolidate central control, and extend European legal norms and treaty rights North America (107). …