America, Empire of Liberty

Book excerpt: This new, personal interpretation of American history - on the themes of Empire, Liberty and Faith - is David Reynolds' definitive work on the subject. The story begins in the eighteenth century, with an extended struggle among the rival empires of France, Britain and Spain for predominance in North America, which Britain eventually wins in the 'first world war' of 1756-63. Coming of age as a military power in its own right in the Second World War, the United States establishes a global American empire while waging the Cold War and does not dismantle it thereafter. From its founding, the colonies and the new nation enjoy greater economic and political liberty than Europe, especially through cheap land. But shortage of labour (the flip side of cheap land) makes the growth of the economy dependent on black slavery. Liberty therefore becomes a crucial issue in the history of this nascent nation. 'Whose liberty?' is the big question in the Twentieth century - causing often violent agitation about the rights of African-Americans. This debate then extends to women, homosexuals, guns, the unborn and multiculturalism. The driver behind the American way of life is so often its religious faith, derived from Calvinist Protestantism. Reynolds shows how it can be characterised by a providentialist sense of mission, so powerful in its reach it becomes the underlying evangelical ideology of America and its foreign policy, from Wilson to George W. Bush.