A World of Empire
From the ancient world to modern times, tyrants had dreams of empire and they would realize those dreams through conquest. The purpose of empire is to expropriate the land, labor, raw materials and markets for the imperial hegemon. Language is a factor. Euphemisms like freedom, democracy, and liberation are deployed to cover the nefarious activities of the dominant power, in this case the United States. Sending in the Marines and aerial bombardment are always an option, but Washington also uses boycotts, blockades and sanctions to bring to heel designated enemies. When not directly intervening, the U.S. also extends control through local collaborators. The world of empire exists with new shapes and forms.
Speaker
Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder is an award-winning professor and historian of European history at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Before Toronto, he taught at Yale for more than twenty years. He is the author of Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, Our Malady, and On Tyranny.
john margolf –
A clarifying summary of the growth of the existing world order.
Jamie Belmont –
Unable to listen to the entire presentation due to poor radio reception. Parts I did hear were delivered with great clarity and seemed an unprejudiced account of empires and efforts towards democracy over the centuries.
Ella G. –
People who came to colonize America from Britain were poor, uneducated, Protestant, unwilling to mix with locals, the complete opposite of the Spanish who were highly educated, rich, who mixed with the locals, Catholic.