Empire for Liberty. A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz Richard, H. Immerman Princeton and Oxford : Princeton University Press ( 2010 ), 271 p., ISBN 978-0-691-12762-0 Imperium. Geschichte und Theorie eines politischen Systems Ulrich, Leitner Frankfurt/New York : Campus ( 2011 ), 305 p., ISBN 978-3-593-39503-6 Demokratie und Imperium. Die Vereinigten Staaten zwischen Fundamentalismus, Liberalismus und Populismus Unger, Frank ; edited by Faber Richard, Narr Wolf-Dieter Würzburg : Königshausen and Neumann ( 2010 ), 264 p., ISBN 978-3-8260-4322-2 The events of 9/11 and America’s reactions to them triggered a flood of literature on the American Empire. A decade later, neither the amount of publications nor interest in this topic seem to have waned, which indicates an ongoing need for clarification and insight regarding imperial politics. While authors focused initially on the conditions and functioning of empire in general and the special features of the United States as its current representative, now the resulting discourses have themselves become a subject of attention in their own right. The three titles considered here are located within that range and therefore contribute to a better understanding of the world’s current leading political actor and its underlying mechanisms, even though they differ widely in terms of background, perspective and scope. To start with the internal perspective, the American historian, Richard H. Immerman, takes us on a journey through more than two hundred years of US foreign relations. As the subtitle suggests, his narrative is developed around formative figures in this field and therefore includes chapters on Benjamin Franklin, John Quincy Adams, William Henry Seward, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Foster Dulles and Paul Wolfowitz, which are bookended by general thoughts on the US, empire and liberty in the introductory and concluding sections. The introduction sketches out Immerman’s aim, which is twofold: firstly, to show that “America is and always has been an empire” (p. 4), and secondly, to trace the different meanings that the notion of empire assumed over time and in what ways it changed. Notwithstanding this concession to the flexibility of the term, its close tie to liberty is identified as its constant attribute. The first two chapters on Franklin and Adams illustrate an early usage of ‘empire’ that was relatively neutral and almost interchangeable with ‘state’. Its more aggressive and expansionist nuances gradually evolved and were embodied in the “manifest destiny” (p. 56/93), the widespread belief that it was the duty of white Anglo-Saxons to populate and settle the North American continent. As the accomplishment of this task became more and more feasible, attention shifted beyond the homeland. Seward envisioned a commercial empire that would necessarily entail an “empire of the seas” (p. 108) under US command. After him, and in line with the trends of his time, Lodge fulfilled the shift towards imperialism, promoting territorial expansion abroad as a sign of American Greatness. Only half a century later such behaviour had become totally inappropriate, as empires were discredited as aggressive oppressors and therefore incompatible with liberty. Consequently, Dulles avoided the corresponding rhetoric and the author characterises his rather as an “empire of security” (p. 175) in confrontation with the ‘evil’ Soviet Empire. After the end of the Cold War, new opportunities opened for the rehabilitation of the term. Wolfowitz seized this chance by stressing the need for a benevolent empire that fights evil wherever possible. Immerman concludes his analysis with some critical remarks on the politics of the latest Bush administration, which, in his view, threatened America’s role as the beacon of liberty. The German political scientist Frank Unger also paints a picture of internal American conditions, but from an outside perspective. His book is not a comprehensive work, but a selection of articles from the past decades that were published by the author’s colleagues after his unexpected death in 2008. The essays are roughly grouped into three sections: democracy, religion and empire. Rather than institutional designs or the formal procedures of American democracy, the recurring theme of the first section is the so called “American creed” (e.g., p. 17). This term captures a diffuse set of values, beliefs and truths that are thought to be American and which have achieved widespread consensus within American society. The strength of this creed is displayed in its ability to overlap and mitigate social conflicts – to which Unger is particularly sensitive in all his texts – and hence to facilitate the stabilisation of a system directed by a small homogenous elite ever since its formation. However, from an imperial perspective, the more important implications are the corresponding feeling of being “exceptional in this world” (p. 21) and the missing connection to a specific territory – as the creed is characterised by “habits of thinking and reasoning” (p. 16) – which make it potentially boundless. The second section highlights religion’s pervasiveness throughout American society and the resulting conviction that Americans are acting in the name of God and executing his will, which corroborates their exceptional self-image. It comes as no surprise that Unger is apprehensive about the rise of the US to become the only remaining superpower in the last section. Unlike his quite neutral description of the American creed as an integrating factor, his verdict is at times much harsher, e.g. in his judgement of the “uninformed public, largely infantilised through the media” (p. 226, translation by M.W.). Still, in his analysis he identifies Wilsonianism as the defining element of the American Empire, understood as “peacemaking free-trade capitalism” (p. 202, translation by M.W.) following the British model. He describes the establishment of this paradigm, gradually from World War II onwards and wholly after the Cold War, until it became an unquestioned consensus among political and economical elites. In contrast to the other two works, the approach of the political scientist Ulrich Leitner is decidedly theoretical and systematic. Discourses on empire usually assume a historical perspective, because there are only a few, if not just one, imperial actors at any given time. Consequently, both historians and political scientists engage in these debates. Leitner’s starting point is the observation that the former apply socio-scientific concepts and the latter draw historical analogies without being sufficiently aware of each other’s practice. He therefore undertakes an interdisciplinary inquiry to reach a definition of an “ideal type” (p. 20, translation by M.W.) of empire that should serve as a basis for subsequent research on the imperial aspects of political entities. The analysis is carried out in three steps. The first section examines different notions of the term empire as they appear in the debates of the last decade, in which comparisons between the US and ancient Rome are usually put forward. A series of aspects are highlighted as they dominated the discourses, such as the distinction between hegemony and empire, the possibility of formal or informal rule and the relationship between the civilized core and the barbarian outside. The second part systematically tracks established definitions and is again divided into two subunits. The first is dedicated to political science and its basic theories on the behaviour of states, the international relations between them and the ways in which this system can be transformed. He argues that an empire breaks through the natural anarchy of interstate relations by monopolising power and establishing hierarchical order. The second subunit exposes classical studies on the Roman Empire and its internal structure that point to the need for legitimisation and integration in varying degrees, depending on the status of the target group in question. The last step tries to combine these findings and integrate them into a coherent definition of empire. The result is quite extensive and comprises a whole range of characteristics. Its major innovation is the distinction between structures and the processes of integration required to hold them together, which need different features in order to function on the vertical plane for the domestic system and on the horizontal plane in the international realm. Finally, guaranteed security and stability are identified as the major sources of imperial legitimacy. As diverse as these three approaches are, so too are the shortcomings of each analysis. In Immerman’s work it is a systematic one that is related to the lack of a definition of the term liberty. Initially, he recognises the almost arbitrary use of both his key words: empire and liberty. In the first case, this is no problem, since it is his stated goal to trace the different semantics that the term assumed in the course of American history. A similar effort regarding liberty is avoided by simply declaring that it “meant different things to different people at different times. Nevertheless, (...) America is the land of liberty” (p. 232). In fact, Immerman’s generally highly informative and entertaining narrative reveals that liberty was only intimately linked to empire during the early republic. It was almost irrelevant to imperialists (Lodge) and ranked at most second after the fear of communism (Dulles) and the antagonism of good and evil (Wolfowitz). Admittedly, this is no cause for concern in itself but becomes problematic because Immerman himself bases his (prudent) appreciation of the American Empire on its close ties with positive values, “especially those concerned with liberty” (p. 6). If, however, the empire of liberty is presented as the empire of “different things to different people at different times” (p. 232), the value of such an empire becomes difficult to assess. The collection of Unger’s essays proves fruitful for any non-American reader to understand hidden mechanisms and deeper characteristics of US society. However, more guidance and background information would render the reading even more worthwhile. The editors limit themselves to a very short introduction with only general remarks, so it is up to the reader to guess even the publishing date of the individual texts (only at the end does one find out that there is a complete list of Unger’s publications, including those incorporated in the book). More information about the context of these otherwise partly loosely related and partly repetitive contributions would better do justice to Unger’s work. Leitner’s project is definitely the most ambitious in systematic and theoretical terms. He seeks no less than to provide an applicable definition of empire for historically comparative studies. The usefulness of this tool cannot yet be assessed, but will need to be tested in future research projects. It is certain, however, that the combination of historical and political perspectives is the right way to achieve a better understanding of empires and their politics. Yet, the very broad basis on which Leitner’s inquiry rests inevitably makes it difficult to effectively collate the material and allow it to culminate logically at the end. At times, the reader wishes the author’s unifying hand would intervene more rigorously, especially where a brief summary tries to capture the main ideas of chapters that present a multitude of sometimes vague and conflicting literature. In a similar way, a more prudent handling of the many diagrams would be welcome, as they sometimes effectively illustrate interrelations, but occasionally contribute to further irritation. Whatever the weaknesses of the single texts may be, though, they are largely outweighed by the benefits if one reads them together as an integral foundation for understanding empires in general and the American Empire in particular. For example, the only vaguely definable “American creed” (p. 17), that Unger tries to grasp in several of his articles, could be used to explain Immerman’s observed reluctance to clearly define liberty. He might argue that there is simply no need to go further into detail, since the American public will know intuitively what is meant. Even in light of his concession to the openness of the term, he contents himself with asserting that “[w]hen it comes to liberty, about the only thing Americans agree on is that it is good” (p. 5/6). Another point shall illustrate the benefit of combined reading. It is palpable that in Leitner’s analysis the distinction between empire and imperialism is entirely missing – a differentiation that is much better established in the German than in the English-speaking realm. On the one hand, this is understandable because he relies heavily on Osterhammel’s work, who in turn derived his vocabulary mainly from his preoccupation with 19th century imperialism (e.g. Osterhammel 2009). On the other hand, this seems too serious an omission for a general theory of empire that entails different logics of action than a theory of imperialism (Münkler 2010). This incompatibility is well-documented and can easily be traced in the narratives of Unger and Immerman. As stated above, Unger identifies Wilsonianism as the driving ideology of the American Empire. At the same time, he reports that according to Wilson, imperialism was not a necessary feature of capitalism, “but simply an aberration, a kind of accident” (p. 90, translation by M.W.). Similarly, Immerman describes the enmity between the hardcore imperialist Lodge and Wilson, stating that the latter “was likewise as dedicated an apostle of empire. (...) [But] unlike Lodge, Wilson remained devoted to an Empire for Liberty” (p. 158). It is therefore strongly recommended that all three titles are regarded collectively in order to get an integral view of the concept of empire that includes its abstract features as well as their exemplification in the form of the world’s only current representative, the United States of America.