I started writing this book in 2012, as the first administration of President Barack Obama was coming to an end. However, the research for the book goes back much further and can be said to have started when I did my doctoral research on Central America in the 1970s. I have therefore accumulated a huge debt to a very large number of individuals and institutions over the years.
St. Antony’s College at Oxford University, with its staff and students drawn from all over the world, gave me a deep understanding about the global role of the United States. Many visitors came from the United States itself, and their participation in the college’s seminars provided a constant reminder of the complexities of the internal and external workings of their country.
The Institute of Latin American Studies at London University was also very helpful in shaping the ideas on which this book is based, especially as one of its sister institutes was the Institute of United States Studies. Its chairperson in those years, Margaret Thatcher, had very strong views on the global role of the United States that she was always happy to share with fellow board members such as myself.
As a member for many years of the Regional Advisory Program for Latin America of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in New York, I learned a great deal about the workings of US philanthropic foundations. I also benefited greatly from conversations with the network of scholars assembled by the SSRC. I worked during this period of my career as a consultant to a number of international financial institutions and multinational enterprises that proved to be an invaluable experience for understanding how the US empire operates.
At Chatham House I benefited greatly from lengthy discussions on the global role of the United States with specialists from the different regions of the world. I would like to thank in particular Roy Allison, Duncan Brack, Paul Cornish, Stephen Green, Rosemary Hollis, Gareth Price, Alex Vines, Richard Whitman, and Elizabeth Wilmshurst. At a more superficial level, my meetings with world leaders from Angola, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, the United States, and many other countries were also very instructive.
Chatham House is part of a network of think tanks around the world and is the sister institute of the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States. Through this network, which also included the RAND Corporation and the Brookings Institution, I learned about the interaction between state and nonstate actors. In particular, I discovered what a central role think tanks play in providing the intellectual foundations for the US empire.
Many people have commented on chapters of this book before final revisions, but I would like to thank in particular Jonathan Bell, John Coatsworth, Michael Cox, James Dunkerley, Eric Hershberg, Iwan Morgan, and John Welch. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to give a special vote of thanks to Barbara Bulmer-Thomas for the way in which she has challenged my ideas for half a century and helped me to avoid easy solutions or shallow conclusions.