Any work that canvasses a topic as broad as the history of a global empire rests upon countless contributions, some remembered, many forgotten. For the latter, I apologize to anyone inadvertently overlooked. For the others, these few words are poor recompense for the rich insights you shared during this lifelong voyage of discovery.
Much of this work was written at the behest of the well-known editor Tom Engelhardt. For more than a decade now my writing days away from university have been interrupted by his phone calls, urging me to climb down from my ivory tower and share my findings with the global audience he has built for his innovative website, TomDispatch. At first, I was reluctant. But as one who believes in the humble footnote as the foundation for a historian’s integrity, I found that Tom’s practice of hyperlinking keywords to full-text sources had transformed the Internet from a repository of rumors into an authoritative medium. Instead of an audience of a dozen or less for an article in an academic journal, one of my essays for TomDispatch reached a readership of several hundred thousand in English, Spanish, and French. As these short essays grew into more substantial chapters for this book, both Tom and his colleague Nick Turse were careful, critical editors. For the ideas and the global audience that they have provided me, I am grateful.
During these same years, I was also working with Francisco Scarano, Mike Cullinane, and Courtney Johnson, close colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, in launching a research project on “Empires in Transition.” As the project’s meetings moved from Madison to Sydney and Manila to Barcelona, our network of contributors grew to some 140 scholars on four continents. At Sydney University, Warwick Anderson added imperial medicine to our ever-expanding research agenda. Our close collaborators at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Josep Fradera and Stephen Jacobson, contributed their deep knowledge of Spanish imperial history. Some of the many insights developed through these collaborations are found in these pages.
Apart from this general assistance, others helped in more specific ways. Some portions of chapter 1 appeared, in modified form, in my contributions to the two volumes Colonial Crucible and Endless Empire, which our empires research project published with the University of Wisconsin Press. Parts of chapter 2 originally appeared in essays published, with the help of my colleague Brett Reilly, in TomDispatch during 2010 and 2011. The brief discussion of the origins of the US surveillance state in chapter 4 was first developed at much greater length in another book for the University of Wisconsin Press, Policing America’s Empire. My arguments in all three of these books benefited from that press’s insightful publications director, Dr. Gwen Walker.
A far different version of chapter 3 appeared in the journal Comparative Studies in Society and History in October 2016. I am indebted to that journal’s editor David Akin for some useful suggestions. In drafting chapter 6, I am grateful to Professor Eduardo Tadem of the University of the Philippines for suggesting that a close examination of the tragic massacre of Filipino troops in Mindanao could cast light on the limits of Washington’s agile global strategy of drones and special operations forces. My brief account of that event was enriched by insights from my old friends Edilberto and Melinda de Jesus. During a visit to Switzerland in the summer of 2015, my wife’s uncle, David Hove, kindly shared the story, recounted in chapter 7, of his monthlong drive across the vast Eurasian landmass, from Peking (Beijing) to Paris. In preparing these chapters for publication, I received generous assistance from a talented group of graduate students at the University of Wisconsin, including Erin Cantos, Joshua Gedacht, and Brett Reilly. Whenever I write, I am reminded of a deep debt to my high school English teacher, Bob Cluett, who gave a me both a love of this craft and the skills to pursue it.
Finally, on a more personal note, many of the ideas in this book were first developed in conversation at the breakfast table over the New York Times with my wife and partner, Mary McCoy. Not only did she help me develop these thoughts but she has sustained me through the many solitary hours that it takes to think and write. Hence, this long overdue dedication.
Madison, Wisconsin
March 2017