Todd Gitlin Quotes

With the rise of America, the global balance of power shifted away from the old European powers.

We live in the age of the American empire.

Empires can only decline when other nations decline and make way for them.

Power is the true reserve currency in international affairs.

The U.S. has intervened more often in more countries farther from its own shores than has any power in modern history.

To call the American role in the world imperial was, for many who did so, a way of asserting that the United States was misusing its power beyond its borders and, in so doing, subverting its founding political principles within them.

Show me one dictatorship in the world that has not been supported by the United States government or some European governments. It almost doesn't exist. I think a dictatorship and hegemony are part of the same phenomenon.

We really need to stop the imperialist tendencies of countries like the United States and Great Britain.

The U.S. has been a great friend all these years, but as soon as Africa found itself starting to move up, the U.S. is really disengaging.

American influence is not what it used to be.

We've had administrations where our State Department was an outpost of the British Foreign Office for altogether too long.

World power is fleeting. Nations rise and fall.

... we Americans know and we observe the differences between world leadership and imperialism.

This is not the colonial empire that somehow he has in his hand. I’ve never felt that from him. I felt that from [George] W [Bush]. I felt that from [Bill] Clinton. I felt that from every American president, including ones I disagreed with, including [Jimmy] Carter. I don’t feel that from President Obama.

We've built the largest empire in the history of the world. It's been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It's only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort.

For when we talk about the spreading power and influence of globalization, aren't we really referring to the spreading economic and military might of the US?

In the past, the U.S. was the centre of the world, where everything was happening. I think my stories have always sought to question this, maybe even criticise it.

American power worldwide is at its historic zenith.

So long as there is imperialism in the world, a permanent peace is impossible.

Also, people are not often aware of the way the United States' policies influence what happens in places like Haiti or El Salvador or Nicaragua. Or in Columbia right now.

You know, the Brits had a way of - running an empire. And I don't think America is comfortable with an empire.

American influence in the world is certainly considerable, but the United States does not control, directly or indirectly, the politics and economics of other societies, as empires have always done, save for a few special cases that turn out to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

I love Washington, D.C.; I love this country, but I think over the last hundred years we've built up would I call an arrogant empire: people who think the rest of us are too stupid to make our own decisions.

The United States has been a global power since late in the 19th century.

The day of small nations has long passed away. The day of Empires has come.