Touring the American empire of bases with the Marines

Abstract

In the decade after the end of the Cold War, triumphalist U.S. public intellectuals, liberal and conservative alike, were trying on the mantle of ‘empire’ for size. For many at the time, while ‘US imperialism’ denoted kneejerk leftism, ‘the American empire’ might just be an appropriate acknowledgement of achievement on a global scale, an accolade about reality rather than a matter of opprobrium.