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Terminus

Westward Expansion, China, and the End of American Empire

Stuart Rollo

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A sweeping narrative of America's imperial history and its long entanglement with China.

In Terminus, Stuart Rollo examines the origins and trajectory of American empire in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on its westward expansion and historic entanglement with China. American foreign and strategic policy in this region, Rollo argues, has always been shaped by broader economic and political concerns centered on China. China's current rise, and the economic and strategic systems that China is developing, represents the most serious challenge to the structure of American empire to date.

Rollo...

A sweeping narrative of America's imperial history and its long entanglement with China.

In Terminus, Stuart Rollo examines the origins and trajectory of American empire in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on its westward expansion and historic entanglement with China. American foreign and strategic policy in this region, Rollo argues, has always been shaped by broader economic and political concerns centered on China. China's current rise, and the economic and strategic systems that China is developing, represents the most serious challenge to the structure of American empire to date.

Rollo paints a sweeping historical narrative of American imperial history and its relationship with China from 1776 to the present. Grounded in archival research, official and personal correspondence, policy documents, declassified intelligence material, and congressional records, Terminus traces the development of American empire building from the pre-independence period to the eve of World War I, arguing that this new empire was primarily driven by commercial interests in China. Rollo explores shifts in global power, resource politics, and international economic structures that led the United States to transition from one of several imperial powers to the world's sole superpower by the last decade of the twentieth century. Finally, he examines the decline of American empire since its brief period of unipolarity in the 1990s, explaining the new pressures and challenges posed by the rise of China.

Rollo proposes three scenarios for how the United States might manage its inevitable imperial decline: a vain attempt to shore up and extend the empire, an exploitative hegemony, or a post-imperial foreign policy. This last option would work to repair the damaged fabric of American social and political life, providing a long-term, stable foundation for national security, prosperity, and the well-being of its citizens. All empires eventually end, but with the benefit of hindsight, Rollo urges us to consider how to engineer a softer landing.

Reviews

Reviews

Stuart Rollo's Terminus: Westward Expansion, China, and the End of American Empire is a richly kaleidoscopic contribution to the ever-burgeoning literature on US-China relations....Terminus is a versatile book that can be read in multiple registers. Rollo's narrative is especially valuable for the way he weaves four distinct narrative threads together.

In Terminus, Stuart Rollo offers a timely, sweeping historical narrative of US westward expansion and United States–east Asia relations that helps us better understand the contemporary challenges that US policy-makers face regarding China....[Terminus] provides a thought-provoking alternative view of the future, at a moment when the world remains deeply unequal, fractured and violent due to the past and present actions of powerful empires, including the US.

Important, insightful, and timely, this is an extraordinary synthesis of an incredibly comprehensive subject. I could never have imagined it possible to summarize the economic, political, and cultural history of US-Chinese relations over 225 years, yet Rollo has succeeded. The research is impressive, both for its thoroughness and selectivity.

Narrating the rise and decline of the American empire through the prism of US-China relations, Stuart Rollo has written a succinct, sophisticated, and hard-hitting critique. The appearance of Terminus could not be more timely—nor or its contents more worrisome.

About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
296
ISBN
9781421447384
Illustration Description
1 b&w illus
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Westward Expansion and the Commercial Origins of Empire
Chapter One. The Long March Westward and Native Dispossession
Chapter Two. The China Focus in Westward

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Westward Expansion and the Commercial Origins of Empire
Chapter One. The Long March Westward and Native Dispossession
Chapter Two. The China Focus in Westward Expansion
Chapter Three. A Colonial Empire
Part II. Ascending Power to Unipolarity, 1914–1991
Chapter Four. The 30 Years Crisis
Chapter Five. American Hegemony
Chapter Six. War with Asia, Recession, and Resurgence
Part III. From a Unipolar Global Empire to a Shrinking Exploitative Hegemony
Chapter Seven. The Unipolar Moment and Imperial Hubris
Chapter Eight. The Sleeper Awakes: China's Rise as a World Historical Moment
Chapter Nine. Trump, Biden, and Trouble Ahead
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

Author Bio
Stuart Rollo
Featured Contributor

Stuart Rollo, Ph.D.

Stuart Rollo (SYDNEY, AUS) is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney.