Tag: Empire
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East India Company
I first read The Anarchy by William Dalrymple in the early days of the Trump administration—back when there was still a fleeting concern of malevolent competence, a sense (however misguided) that the machinery might be steered, however clumsily. That mirage evaporated fast. What followedu wasn’t some masterclass in autocracy but a clown car of…
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Empire Overreach
One of the most intractable problems of the American empire has been that it was hard to see the overreach because, as everyone knows, empires simply don’t overreach. Not ever. Not in the long, groaning history of human civilization has any empire—be it Roman, British, Mongol, or otherwise—stretched itself too thin, spent beyond its means,…
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Manifest Destiny
The US of A, baby, a chrome-plated behemoth sputtering on fumes of Manifest Destiny, and nostalgia, clinging to the delusion of its military-industrial phallus. A great power, it wheezes, chest puffed with ticker-tape parades and fighter jet ballets. But the circuits are fried, man. The real juice, the green, that’s the current coursing through its veins.. A great…