Imperial Perspectives

by Jim Miles

2005

A series of articles that looks at the American empire from its inception to modern times. It is neither a comprehensive nor linear history but is intended to highlight themes and attitudes that have pervaded the actions and rhetoric of American imperial ideology at home and abroad. The ultimate view is not new, nor is it a 'conspiracy' theory. It is a well-documented history – transferred from and continuing alongside British imperial history – that weaves the wealthy, the government, large corporations, religion, and the military into a cloak of imperial hubris over-riding the rights and freedoms of others, at home and around the globe.

Jim Miles is a Canadian educator who has regularly contributed a series of book reviews to the Palestine Chronicle under the general rubric of the American Empire. His interest in this topic stems originally from an environmental perspective, which encompasses the militarization of the global community by the American government.

List of Articles

Internal Links

Imperial Perspectives (Part I) by Jim Miles, 2005. “This is the first in a series of articles that looks at the American empire from its inception to modern times.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part II) by Jim Miles, 2005. “The empire was now in a battle of good versus evil, light against dark, modernity versus tribalism, Christians battling the Muslim hordes.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part III) by Jim Miles, 2005. “The drive for personal property, personal wealth of all kinds, leads to the establishment of a plutocracy rather than a democracy.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part IV) by Jim Miles, 2005. “Part IV of Imperial Perspectives looks at how a plutocracy is more evident than a democracy as the nation developed.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part V) by Jim Miles, 2005. “At the inception of the "United States" there was a general sentiment that 'political parties were mischievous if not downright evil.'”

Imperial Perspectives (Part VI) by Jim Miles, 2005. “The road lay open for indiscriminate accession of Indian land and the containment of the remaining indigenous peoples.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part VII) by Jim Miles, 2005. “The Orientalist view of the Islamic world as backward and unprogressive tries to support the claim that intervention will bring them into the modern world.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part VIII) by Jim Miles, 2005. “Part VIII of Imperial Perspectives weaves a net around a series of 'incidences' leading into the discussion of the sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbour.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part IX) by Jim Miles, 2005. “Part IX of Imperial Perspectives looks at the way god is used as propaganda in order to support the subjugation and killing of others.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part X) by Jim Miles, 2005. “Part X of Imperial Perspectives is directed to the Central American 'banana republics'.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part XI) by Jim Miles, 2005. “In Part XI of Imperial Perspectives, the relationship between business and war is looked at from Clausewitz' point of view.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part XII) by Jim Miles, 2005. “In part XII, European Phoenix, Imperial Perspectives looks at how Europe rose from the ashes of war, with American aid.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part XIII) by Jim Miles, 2006. “Part XIII of Imperial Perspectives looks at the Asian wars after the US arrived to the scene in Eastern and Southeastern Asia.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part XIV) by Jim Miles, 2006. “Part XIV of Imperial Perspectives combines the new empirical cloak of the corporations with the old empirical khaki and fatigues of the military.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part XV) by Jim Miles, 2006. “Part XV of Imperial Perspectives takes a broad view of Britain's imperial demise and the rise of American 'strategic oil'.”

Imperial Perspectives (Part XVI) by Jim Miles, 2006. “The final article of Imperial Perspectives summarizes two situations, Palestine and its state of dispossession, and US imperial problems abroad.”