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Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (American Empire Project)
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Product Description
Delving into new areas—from plans to militarize outer space to Constitution-breaking presidential activities at home and the devastating corruption of a toothless Congress—Nemesis offers a striking description of the trap into which the reckless ambitions of America’s leaders have taken us. Johnson confronts questions of pressing urgency: What are the unintended consequences of our dependence on a permanent war economy? What does it mean when a nation’s main intelligence organization becomes the president’s secret army? Or when the globe’s sole “hyperpower” becomes the greatest hyper-debtor of all times?
Writing “as if the very existence of the nation is at stake” (San Francisco Chronicle), Johnson offers his most “bracing” and “important” (Los Angeles Times) exploration of the crisis facing America.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #13893 in Books
- Published on: 2008-01-22
- Released on: 2008-01-22
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 368 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Like ancient Rome, America is saddled with an empire that is fatally undermining its republican government, argues Johnson (The Sorrows of Empire), in this bleak jeremiad. He surveys the trappings of empire: the brutal war of choice in Iraq and other foreign interventions going back decades; the militarization of space; the hundreds of overseas U.S. military bases full of "swaggering soldiers who brawl and sometimes rape." At home, the growth of an "imperial presidency," with the CIA as its "private army," has culminated in the Bush administration's resort to warrantless wiretaps, torture, a "gulag" of secret CIA prisons and an unconstitutional arrogation of "dictatorial" powers, while a corrupt Congress bows like the Roman Senate to Caesar. Retribution looms, the author warns, as the American economy, dependent on a bloated military-industrial complex and foreign borrowing, staggers toward bankruptcy, maybe a military coup. Johnson's is a biting, often effective indictment of some ugly and troubling features of America's foreign policy and domestic politics. But his doom-laden trope of empire ("the capacity for things to get worse is limitless.... the American republic may be coming to its end") seems overstated. With Bush a lame duck, not a Caesar, and his military adventures repudiated by the electorate, the Republic seems more robust than Johnson allows. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From AudioFile
We are, the author contends, headed for monumental economic disaster because of selfish, secret, and reckless military spending. As Johnson outlines the "dangerous path" the United States has forged., narrator Tom Weiner's steady, deep voice offers comfort to a rocky journey. The book's only flaw is the extent of the author's tangential explanations. But the gem is the section on the erosion of freedom of information. The author's theme is clear early on: "Imperialism requires that a . . . domestic democracy change into a domestic tyranny." Weiner's voice of reason resonates as listeners are left questioning our future. M.B. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
The third book in a series begun with Blowback (2000), which predicted harsh comeuppance for the post-cold war American "global empire," and The Sorrows of Empire (2004), which continued Johnson's thesis with a lambasting of American militarism pre- and post-September 11, this book continues the author's broad condemnation of American foreign policy by warning of imminent constitutional and economic collapse. In a chapter analyzing "comparative imperial pathologies," Johnson reminds readers of Hannah Arendt's point that successful imperialism requires that democratic systems give way to tyranny and asserts that the U.S. must choose between giving up its empire of military bases (as did Britain after World War II) or retaining the bases at the expense of its democracy (as did Rome). Johnson also predicts dire consequences should the U.S. continue to militarize low Earth orbits in pursuit of security. To some extent a timely response to recent arguments in favor of American empire, such as those of Niall Ferguson in Colossus, this account also reiterates Johnson's perennial concerns about overseas military bases, the CIA, and the artifice of a defense-fueled economy. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Customer Reviews
Articulate, Provocative, and Interesting
Each work in this author's trilogy (`Blowback' 2000, `'The Sorrows of Empire' 2004, and `Nemesis' 2006) raises questions about the wisdom of post WWII American policy, with abundant examples that include counterproductive military base leases (leading to routine local outrages) to the not-so-public black operations that very often misfire and result in the opposite effect of the original intentions.
Each of these books is well written and well worth reading. The subject is vital to anyone concerned with our status, and (more importantly) with the ideals that founded, sustained, and made the United States a great nation.
Highly recommended -you decide.
Great Read
Thorough, chilling and compelling read. I want to read other titles by the author now.
"Let our object be...nothing but our country"
Nemesis (2006) is the final book in Johnson's trilogy, following Blowback in 2000, and The Sorrows of Empire in 2004. It is a warning call to Americans in our interdependent world that our foreign policy actions have consequences, and that we cannot continue to guide our destiny through aggressive use of military power. Nemesis is well researched with scores of citations. It poses alarming questions, such as: 1) is our political system capable of saving the US in the face of the DOD and unaccountable government spending? and 2) What are the effects of having the US maintain so many bases in foreign lands? and 3) Is "military Keynesianism" a sustainable policy?
Johnson draws some historical lessons from the empires of Rome, which tried to maintain a far flung empire but eventually lost its government, and Britain, which gave up its distributed empire for the benefit of more robustly sustaining England. He devotes a chapter examining the CIA as an agency of foreign policy and the effects of US military bases in foreign countries. He has many surprising facts, such as there are more people of Lebanese descent in Brazil than in Lebanon, and that post WWII Japanese pacifism is a fiction.
Johnson considers space the next battleground and describes the currently deployed ground-based missile defense as a `dual use' system with the potential offensive purpose of shooting down satellites. Johnson's description of the future battleground of space is quite thought provoking and alarming, whatever your attitudes about the efficacy of military preparedness and the use of force. He points out the collateral damage likely during earth orbit warfare will have detrimental consequences for everyone, as the debris clouds will affect all communication satellites. Johnson states that our government operating in shadows of secrecy is not what the Constitutional framers intended, and the public should have access to information about the activities of our government.
This book is depressing in its hard-edged assessments of the future of the US, and is a signal alarm to that it may already be too late influence a more secure and sustainable nation for successive generations.
