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Loading... Why America Is Not a New Romeby Vaclav Smil
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A demographer concerned with long-term trends and with a taste for classical history, the author is also a man who has apparently had it with superficial comparisons between Rome and the United States at their respective peaks and who has the mission of dampening down wild proposals based on sloppy argument by badly understood analogy. This is almost besides the point, as those people in love with the concept of empire will not be deterred from using such analogies and those who know better will come away from this book with something of a shrug. As for who this book might appeal to I could see it being best used as a textbook in an undergrad world history class. On the other hand, I'm now curious enough to read some of Smil's analysis of contemporary trends. ( ) Okay, okay -- so there are drastic differences, in a number of important areas, between the ancient Roman empire and the modern US republic, but Smil doesn't try to deny that the latter seems to be in its decline phase. (My own current working model: The Shrubbish regime, 2001-2009, was so disastrous in every policy area that not even as intelligent a person as Obama can reverse its damage. The near future will see the electorate making the grotesque mistake of returning to power the Boneheads, aka Republicans, cementing the country's downhill direction.) no reviews | add a review
An investigation of the America-Rome analogy that goes deeper than the facile comparisons made on talk shows and in glossy magazine articles.America's post-Cold War strategic dominance and its pre-recession affluence inspired pundits to make celebratory comparisons to ancient Rome at its most powerful. Now, with America no longer perceived as invulnerable, engaged in protracted fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and suffering the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, comparisons are to the bloated, decadent, ineffectual later Empire. In Why America Is Not a New Rome, Vaclav Smil looks at these comparisons in detail, going deeper than the facile analogy-making of talk shows and glossy magazine articles. He finds profound differences.Smil, a scientist and a lifelong student of Roman history, focuses on several fundamental concerns: the very meaning of empire; the actual extent and nature of Roman and American power; the role of knowledge and innovation; and demographic and economic basics--population dynamics, illness, death, wealth, and misery. America is not a latter-day Rome, Smil finds, and we need to understand this in order to look ahead without the burden of counterproductive analogies. Superficial similarities do not imply long-term political, demographic, or economic outcomes identical to Rome's. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)973History and Geography North America United StatesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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