Last week, I provided a couple teaser sentences from the book Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance–and Why They Fall by Amy Chua.

Now that I’m done with this very interesting book, I’m going to review it as part of Eva’s World Citizen Challenge. 

When I saw this book at the bookstore, I thought, “what a great book for the Economics cagetory of the World Citizen Challenge!”   However, once I started reading it, I quickly realized it wasn’t about economics, except occassionally in passing mention.  No matter.  I would have kept reading anyway.  It could probably fit in the “history” cagetory, but I think I’ll assign this book to the “Worldwide Issues” cagetory, because this book also addresses present-day issues, not just past ones.

The subtitle of this book is “How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance–and Why They Fall”.  First of all, what is a “hyperpower”?  The author defines a “hyperpower” (a word first used regarding America by a French foreign minister) as being analogous to “world-dominant power”.   Very few societies, or countries, in history have accomplished “hyperpower” status.

What are some examples of past and present hyperpowers?  How did they start? And why did past hyperpowers eventually decline or fail?

The author, Chua, opines that the growth of hyperpowers have had something in common:  tolerance.  Tolerance, of course, is a relative term–more of that in a moment.  Simply being tolerant doesn’t guarantee hyperpower status (for one thing, some countries are simply too small to be a hyperpower), but it seems to be one critical ingredient.

The reasons for the decline of an empire always has complex and varied reasons.   However, Chua shows that– perhaps  not coincidentally– when a hyperpower becomes xenophobic, or intolerant, it is part of the beginning of the end of that empire. 

From this viewpoint, Chua analyzes the history of several past hyperpowers.  She also discusses America’s current status as a hyperpower and questions whether it can continue to be one.  Let’s look at some examples from the book, but before we do that, let’s look again at the meaning of “tolerance” as used in the book.

Chua acknowledges that tolerance was and is a relative term and doesn’t necessarily mean total respect for different cultures.  As she says:

“…..I’m not talking about tolerance in the modern, human-rights sense.  By tolerance, I don’t mean political or cultural equality.  Rather, as I will use the term, tolerance simply means letting very different kinds of people live, work, and prosper in your society–even if only for instrumental or strategic reasons.  To define the term a little more formally, tolerance in this book will refer to the degree of freedom with which individuals or groups of different ethnic, religious, racial, linguistic, or other backgrounds are permitted to coexist, participate, and rise in society.”

Chua adds that “ no society based on racial purity, religious zealotry, or ethnic cleansing has ever become a world-dominant power”.  She cites Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as examples, devoting a chapter later in the book to these two temporary powers.

The examples in the book are basically chronological.  It starts with the Persian Empire, which was founded by Cyrus the Great, and its’ rapid decline after Alexander the Great’s death.   Next, it covers ancient Rome. 

During Rome’s Golden Age, religious diversity was generally acceptable, as it was during the Persian’s Empire’s ruling days.  However, Romans did have some limits to what was considered acceptable–they banned the Druid practice of human sacrifice, for example.  Also, after Augustus conquered Egypt, he banned the worship of the dieties associated with Antony and Cleopatra.

With the emergence of Judaism and Christianity, religious acceptance in the Roman empire changed.  Later Roman emperors became less accomodating towards these two religions–Hadrian banned circumcision and the teachings of Jewish Law, and Caligula forced some Jews to eat pork.   Many Christians were persecuted, until Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity.  Then the tables were turned, and almost everyone except Christians were persecuted.  During this time, ethnic conflicts started to rise, especially towards Germanic tribes (including the Goths, Franks and Saxons) immigrating into the Roman terroritories.  These conflicts marked the beginning of the end of the Roman empire, although of course there were also many other factors (theories include lead poisoning and the like) that led to its’ decline.

Ancient China is also examined in this book.  The Great Mongol Nation as ruled under Genghis Khan allowed absolute freedom of worship for everyone.  During his rule,  Genghis Khan continued to annex different tribes and ethnicies into his nation.  To prevent ethnic divisions, he would arrange marriages between his own children and tribal leaders who joined his nation.   After Genghis Khan’s death, the Mongol Nation eventually fragmented, due to many reasons, including the Bubonic Plague.  However, during its’ decline (which occurred over a few hundred years), religious intolerance became an issue as it did during the end of the Roman Empire.  In addition, non-Chinese customs, religions, and ideas were cracked down upon and the use of foreign languages were banned.

Part Two of the book includes further examples of the rise and decline of powerful nations.   Sixteenth-century Spain started to decline after the Spanish Inquisition which targeted Jews and Muslims, killing or driving most of them out of the country.   Another example includes how Great Britain lost Ireland from its’ empire, because of too little religious tolerance towards the Irish (Ireland was predominantly Catholic while the Scots, Welsh, and English were mostly Protestant).

Part Three is titled “The Future of World Dominance”, covering America and other current governments such as modern-day China and India — and the European Union.  Chua points out that a country joining the European Union must show that it observe human rights and fundamental freedoms (tolerance), in addition to meeting certain economic and political criteria.

In discussing America, Chua begins by analyzing the rise of America’s super power status.   When America became independent, its’  new government was partly based on the principle of separation between church and state.   Although the American government –in general– has been relatively tolerant concerning freedom of worship, it wasn’t always racially tolerant.  Slavery and treatment of the Native Americans are examples.  On the other hand, in spite of this, immigration to America was generally unrestricted and allowed America to grow into the diverse country that it is now.  

Finally, will America be able to continue to be a hyperpower, and should it continue to be one?  Chua discusses this at the end of the book, which is difficult to summarize here.  But, basically, Chua feels that America is more likely to maintain its’ hyperpower status if it provides opportunity and good will towards others, rather than one of xenophobia and military force.  Chua also encourages the American government to re-think its’ current immigration policy.   While it cannot be unlimited and let just anyone come in, a relatively open immigration policy is a good way to create close ties between Americans and non-Americans.  Even programs that bring young foreigners temporarily here (such as allowing them to study college here) can be helpful, because they then learn American values which they can then bring back to their homes. 

I think this book was good reading– both for its’ historical context and for its’ look at some of the current situations today.  This book does not attempt to oversimplify the causes of the rise and fall of powerful nations, but to show that tolerance is key to any government’s success. 

I encourage you to read this book  for an in-depth analysis, because there is more than what I’ve covered here.

Reviews of other books I’ve read for the World Citizen Challenge:

Politics: “Dreams and Shadows” by Robin Wright

Memoirs/Autobiographies: “Honeymoon in Tehran” by Azadeh Moaveni

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 7:49 PM and is filed under World Citizen Challenge, book review, books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.