Synopses & Reviews
Although conventionally treated as separate, America's four wars in Asia were actually phases in a sustained U.S. bid for regional dominance, according to Michael H. Hunt and Steven I. Levine. This effort unfolded as an imperial project in which military power and the imposition of America's political will were crucial. Devoting equal attention to Asian and American perspectives, the authors follow the long arc of conflict across seventy-five years from the Philippines through Japan and Korea to Vietnam, tracing along the way American ambition, ascendance, and ultimate defeat. They show how these wars are etched deeply in eastern Asia's politics and culture.
The authors encourage readers to confront the imperial pattern in U.S. history with implications for today's Middle Eastern conflicts. They also offer a deeper understanding of China's rise and Asia's place in today's world.
Review
"A lucid, persuasive, path-breaking study by two historians keenly attuned to both past and present U.S. military engagements. Michael Hunt and Steven Levine place the four devastating wars America fought in Asia between the turn of the century and the 1970s firmly in the context of expansion and empire. They bring the Asian antagonists into these case studies in all their complexity--Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese. And, in a scalding concluding chapter, they apply their insights into war-making, myth-making, and hubris in this earlier 'arc of empire' to present-day U.S. wars in the Middle East. Readers will find this absorbing and provocative start to finish, and many teachers will surely discover that
Arc of Empire is terrific for classroom use."--John W. Dower, Ford International Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Review
"Hunt and Levine make an invaluable contribution to the ongoing debate regarding America as an empire. With lively prose and attention to the humanity of those involved in these conflicts, they have written a marvelously ambitious book that remains accessible and gripping. This is a gem of a study."--Robert J. McMahon, The Ohio State University
Review
"This book is written with the support of the intellectual vision and accumulated knowledge of two of the world's most prominent scholars on the history of U.S.-East Asian relations. It provides an original, thoughtful, well-documented and readable 'grand narrative' about how America's empire-building drive in East Asia became connected with the wars in the Philippines, against Japan, in Korea and, then, Vietnam. The depth of the authors' analysis is greatly enhanced as they give keen attention to East Asia's diverse 'local' settings and conditions. Vividly and convincingly highlighted are the strengths and limits of 'American power' even when the United States was ascending to the zenith of its global dominance. Today, at the time that America's leadership role in the world is facing serious challenges, this is a study that neither specialists nor general readers can afford to ignore."--Chen Jian, Cornell University
About the Author
Michael H. Hunt is Emerson Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author or editor of eleven books, including The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance and A Vietnam War Reader: A Documentary History from American and Vietnamese Perspectives. Steven I. Levine is research faculty associate in the Department of History at the University of Montana and author or editor of four books, including Anvil of Victory: The Communist Revolution in Manchuria, 1945-1948 and America's Wars in Asia: A Cultural Approach to History and Memory.