Challenging Empire By Phyllis Bennis (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2006. 286 pages.)

Abstract

The idea for this book emerged from what the author perceives to be the
extraordinary post-cold war circumstances associated with the American
extremists’ push for empire. Its thesis is simple and straightforward:
American unilateralism and militarism have spawned a global social movement
against such eventualities, giving rise to a new kind of internationalism.
The components of this internationalism are threefold: people and social
movements, governments, and the United Nations (UN). Together, rather
optimistically or perhaps wishfully, they have come to constitute a “second
superpower” capable of challenging this imperial drive (pp. 6 and 257).
The book is divided into five chapters. The “Introduction” (chapter 1)
presents the thesis and framework of the three-part internationalist perspective.
Chapter 2 presents the global social movement as the core component
that defies war and empire and that exhibits peoples’ power as the foundation
of such defiance. The main argument here is that the events of September 11,
2001, provided a golden opportunity for the George W. Bush administration
to manipulate and exploit the American people’s fears and shock. Fear,
according to Bennis, undermines “not only independence of will, but the very
capacity to think” (p. 31). This was the means by which the neo-conservatives,
hijacking state power, were able to carry the American people along,
allowing for no serious questioning or opposition. Yet if the United States is ...