Masks of Empire

Contents: Preface. Foreword/Tariq Ali. Introduction/Achin Vanaik. I. The economics of empire: 1. The Capitalist conjuncture: overaccumulation, financial crises and the retreat from globalization/Walden Bello. II. The ideological preconditions: 2. Manufacturing \'Common Sense\' or cultural hegemony for beginners/Susan George. 3. The iron click: American exceptionalism and US Empire/Mike Marqusse. III. The ideological banners: 4. Political terrorism and the US Imperial Project/Achin Vanaik. 5. The empire of fear/Zia Mian. 6. Humanitarian intervention and US Hegemony: a reconceptualization/Mariano Aguirre. 7. \'And the name for our profits is democracy....\'/Phyllis Bennis. 8. Something out there: State weakness as an imperial pretext/David Sogge. 9. The Internationalization of the war on drugs: Illicit drugs as a moral evil and a useful enemy/David Bewley-Taylor and Martin Jelsma. Conclusion/Achin Vanaik. Contributors. Index.

"Masks of Empire assembles a series of important critiques of the new US Imperialism by some of the finest minds working in contemporary political and social theory. It aims for the first time anywhere to delineate, analyse and evaluate the legitimizing discourses of the imperial agenda of the United States. By uncovering the economic conditions as well as the ideological facade of the neoliberal US Regime, it exposes the various ways through which the United States seeks to extend its hegemony. Further, it suggests how one can morally and practically address the real problems behind the smokescreen created by this empire project." (jacket)