Knowledge and Empire: The Social Sciences and United States Imperial Expansion

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relationship between the social sciences in the U.S. and the formation of empire. I argue that the peculiar way the U.S. has established a global presence during the 20th century—by establishing a commercial empire rather than territorially-based colonies—has generated on the part of state and corporation an unusual interest in the knowledge produced by social scientists. It has also generated an unusual willingness on their part to subsidize the production of that knowledge. Not only have government and corporation considered the social sciences essential to the project of managing empire. At each major stage in the reorganization of that empire state and capital have underwritten a massive reorganization in the production of social science knowledge.