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Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall
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Customer Reviews
Rating:  - Terrific Sweep of History
I'm always annoyed by newspaper articles that tell you why people are going to war today without the history. Here is the history. Well worth the time of anyone interested in current events.
Rating: - If you read one or a history book this year there should be it.
Exceptionally insightful and very well written. You will continually be saying to yourself I knew some of that information why did I not make that connection.
Rating:  - Completely wrong on Spain
The author shows a complete ignorance about the history of Spain. She simply uncritically follows the dictates of the completely biased Black Legend concocted by protestant countries and their national historiographies to this very day. First of all, she refers to Spain as "medieval" precisely at the time, 1492, when the Modern World was ushered in by the Age of Discoveries led by Spain and Portugal. If there was a quintaesentially modern country at that period - unification of the State, creation of a new army and a new administration, merchantile expansionism...- that was Spain. So the very title of the chapter on Medieval Spain is simply flawed.
Second, all the references to Spanish intolerance during its Imperial period are, again, based on pure prejudice. To start with, as more impartial historians have demostrated, the Inquisition in Spain killed far less protestants or "heretics" during all its existence than England killed Irish Catholics in a single decade ( not to talk about the execution and persecution of Catholics in other protestan countries usually considered a model of tolerance)
Then of course, there is the usual nonsense about the "genocide of the Indians in Spanish America". Sorry to say, but if any one goes right now to Central American or Andean countries there you will see that a majority of the population is either Indian or mixed. The question is, how many Indians are left in North America and in what conditions?. how where the aborigines treated in New Zealand or Australia or in Canada or in the Dutch colonies?
And finally, the absolute nonsense is to qualify the Netherlands as an hyperpower in comparison to Spain. That is simply rubbish. The period of Dutch ascendancy lasted for a few decades while Spain was a great power till the very end of the XVIII century. Even when Spain was in a period of decline in the mid XVII century Spanish fleets kept on carrying gold and goods from the Philippines to Mexico and then to Seville and the Dutch and English were just able to capture a couple of galleons in more than two hundred years....enough as to their alleged superiority ( read for instance the history of the Manilla Galleon or the history of the defeat of Vermont in Central America in the mid XVIII century).
And as to the Dutch being tolerant...come on. Even after the Second World World they were exterminating Indonesians.
Finally, as to the Dutch being an hyperpower...just compare right now how many people speak Dutch beyond the Netherlands with the 400 million Spanish speakers around the world.
Rating: - Interesting reading..flawed premise
The author is a perfect example of an "Ivory Tower Intelectual" with little first hand life experience or learning. This book could be used for a "Political Correctness Class 101"
I suspect that because she is a teacher at Yale and is by education and income far removed from most working Americans.
Are her children going to bad and violent schools? Are her streets filled with the crime of illegal immigration? Is her income declining due to downward preasure on wages..an asian American sucess story telling me that we should open our southern border to unlimited immigration while she lives in her safe,wealthy postion at Yale.
Her conclusion is that we must open our borders to unlimited immigration.
She mentions how Jewish people have increased economic activity in the countries they have been welcome and compares Mexican immigration and its consequences with Jewish immigration. I wonder if she or others have ever been mugged or rapped by a Jew ?..no this author has led a sheltered life of privledge in acadamia.
I am sure I will see her in some upscale "yuppie" part of town rather than seeing what day to day life is like for most Americans.
Unless we all agree with her vision of unlimited immigration we are a bunch of "hay seed" bigots.
Just a note.
The hourly wage for meat packing in the midwest in 1970 was $18 per hour
and now its $9 in 2008 (Thats $18 in 1970 $!!) The wages for construction employment have gone from $20-25 per hour in 1970 (yes $ ..unadjusted for inflation) down to $12-15 in 2008. These are millions of family wage jobs forever destroyed by illegal immigration.
I dont think the authors chair at Yale has seen such downward move in income or quality of life.
Rating:  - Cliff Notes Review of Empires
Two published reviews coincidentally refer to this book as something akin to a PowerPoint presentation. I would say it is more like Cliff Notes. The author flies through much of the history of civilization and never comes close to defending her thesis. Her argument never adequately addresses the issue of whether typical societal stressors lead to intolerance and xenophobia etc.... or vice versa. For that matter it may just be that poorer, less developed countries will sometimes undergo rapid transformation at the expense of other nations (think China). She thanks many assistants for the hundreds of hours of research they put into the book, maybe she needed to be more involved up front.
This book is inadequately reasoned and fleshed out, almost like it was a graduate thesis that was padded and fluffed out to be book length. The author's personal stories have no place here and seem to be an excuse to rehash her own achievements and academic pedigree. Perhaps she is aiming to secure a spot in some future presidential administration.
If you are looking for a lighthearted, fact-filled, brief tour through history as seen through analyzing serial empires, this book will do. Forget about it if you are expecting a tightly reasoned, cogent argument that situates the U.S. in current and future history.
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