text: His basic thesis is that a liberal empire can be a greatly positive force in the world, and that the United States is already an empire, but that our inablility to acknowledge the fact leads us to waste our opportunities to be the afore mentioned positive force. Ferguson writes that America is plagued by an attention deficit disorder and too much love of the good life. Thus, we get distracted too easily from important events overseas, and when we do try to intervene, we want quick fixes and low costs.
  
  I couldn't agree more with most of these points. As an American, I'm greatly ashamed of our collective ignorance. I hate feeling like a foreigner in my our country because I watch the news or can find Sumatra on a map. Also, the book strikes a chord with me because of my frustration with half measures in foreign interventions. Countless times, I believe America has done more harm than good by, if you will, talking the talk but not walking the walk. If we commit to something, we need to follow through. This is as true in Iraq today as it has been in the past. We've claimed to support democracy in Latin America, but then turned bannana republics into bannana autocracies. We greatly prolonged and increased Vietnam's suffering without changing the end result at all.
  
  With all this commonality, however, there are a few leaps of logic that Ferguson makes that I can't bring myself to agree with. Basically, he didn't sell me on the thought that the imperial model is the best way to develop the world. How are we supposed to know what is best for everyone? Won't our own biases and self interests inevitably distort even our most altruistic efforts?
  
  When Ferguson hold's up the British Empire as a model of success, I can't help but notice that the best results came only to those places of British colonization, with horrendous consequences for each of the native populations there. And the two greatest examples of beneficial American imperialism - Japan and Germany - were already highly developed before World War II, so it probably wasn't that much of a wonder that we were able to help them return to such a state.
  
  Even if the positive power of empire is conceded, there are important differences between the state of world during the British empire and the state of the world now. It's a concern of immunity from repercussions. In the golden age of imperialism, Europe was in a kind of splendid isolation from its empires. Not to say that there were no reprercussions, but, with the only modern navies in the world, Europe was immune to any very serious threats. On the other hand, in today's world, as an effect of globalization, power has become more decentralized in some respects. Think WMDs,terrorists, and foreign investments in the U.S. economy, for example. Can America as easily afford to make enemies in the developing world as the British could?
  
  In the end "Colossus" didn't settle any agruments for me, but raised new and interesting questions. It is a book that makes you think, and that in and of itself is worth four stars.
  