The Limits of Empire - by Robert McMahon (Paperback)

About the Book

The most complete picture to date of how U.S. strategies of containment and empire-building spiraled out of control in Southeast Asia, investigating also how the demoralizing experience of Vietnam radically undermined U.S. enthusiasm for the region in a strategic sense.

Book Synopsis

In the years following World War II, as the United States began to focus on the global containment of communism, few regions of the world were considered as much of a potential battleground as Southeast Asia. Robert McMahon contends that policymakers exaggerated the significance of the region within the global power balance, dangerously overextending the United States and resulting in the tragedy of the Vietnam War.The first book to situate the Vietnam War in its broad, regional context, The Limits of Empire offers the most complete picture to date of how U.S. strategies of containment and empire-building spiraled out of control in Southeast Asia. Additionally, McMahon's analysis goes further than any previous study of U.S. security policy in Southeast Asia by following it through to the present, investigating how the demoralizing experience of Vietnam radically undermined U.S. enthusiasm for the region in a strategic sense. By conceptualizing the U.S. strategic mission as empire-building rather than merely containment, this book offers an insightful new way to understand America's failure in Vietnam--and also why this grim miscalculation did not lead to the balance-of-power catastrophe that some U.S. officials had forecasted. The Limits of Empire touches upon such broad theoretical concerns as the appeal of nationalist, anti-Western currents to Third World peoples; the inadequacy of empires as a means of asserting control over non-Western peoples; and the chasm between America's postwar ambitions and the sobering realization of the limits of its power.

Review Quotes

"I find this one of the most well-written and ably researched references on contemporary Southeast Asian affairs, particularly since World War II....I would recommend this as [sic] major textbook for any course dealing with the post-colonial period in Southeast Asia. It is extremely difficult to write a book like this, but Robert McMahon has convincingly captured the essence of that era....The author correctly characterises the Vietnam conflict as an 'unwinnable war' on the part of the Americans in spite of their superior firepower....The post-1975 analysis of the 'new regional order' is also most instructive as it describes the shift from failed policies of strategic containment and military deployment, to concerns of economic security, peace and human rights....the book is a significant and solid contribution to the literature on the United States and Southeast Asia." -- Belinda A. Aquino, University of Hawaii at Manoa, "Pacific Affairs"

About the Author

Robert J. McMahon is professor of history at the University of Florida and is the author of Colonialism and The Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, 1945-1949, The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan, andMajor Problems in the History of the Vietnam War.