Counterfeiting Scholarship & IdealismnWilliam Appleman Williams: Empirenas a Way of Life; Oxford UniversitynPress; New York.nby Charles R. KeslernJ-ast August The Nation devoted anspecial issue to William Appleman Williams’sn”astonishing analysis” of thencourse of American imperialism. Thenissue was distributed to delegates tonthe Democratic National Conventionnas a “history lesson” proving that bothn”internal reconstruction” and a “democratic”nforeign policy require Americansnto “come to terms with our life as annempire.” With this essay, now publishednin expanded form as Empire as a Waynof Life, Williams has done this nationna valuable service—even for those ofnus who do not read The Nation regularly:nhe shows historical revisionismnstripped of its scholarly apparatus,nthough not of its scholarly pretensions,nand standing forth proudly as the continuationnof radical or new-left politicsnby other means.nAs with all expressions of politicalnradicalism. Empire consists of two vastlyndisproportionate parts: a tortured andnvoluminous critique of the Americannpast and present (“empire”) and a vaguenand exiguous promise of a radically newnAmerican future (“community”). Accordingnto Williams, American historynhas so far been defined by the question,n”How does one use the evil of empirento sustain, extend, and guarantee thengood of freedom, prosperity and security.””nTo demonstrate this continuingntradeoff, Williams, the so-called “dean”nof revisionist historians, has to revisenand otherwise distort a great deal of history;nbut he eases the burden by coollyneliminating all footnotes and bibliographicalninformation so that it is virtuallynimpossible to check the sourcenMr. Kesler is a graduate student atnHarvard.nof his evidence and the context of hisnquotations. Although I give him creditnfor trying to wipe off his fingerprints,nhis counterfeiting does not go undetected.nWitness, for example, some of thenfactual errors contained in the book:nthat the Chinese have never had an empire;nthat John Quincy Adams introducedn”amendments to the Constitutionnto legitimize secession”; that Lincolnnaddressed the Young Men’s ChristiannAssociation in the 1830’s (thenY.M.C.A., according to Carl Degler,ndid not exist in the U.S. until 1851).nIt must, besides, be a strange kind ofn”empire” that makes newly acquirednterritories into states and admits themnto the Union on equal terms with thenolder states, guaranteeing to each anrepublican form of government.nAs a psychopathology of the Americannway of life. Empire culminates innfalse and increasingly bizarre indictmentsnof the United States for provokingnthe Second World War, the Cubannmissile crisis and the taking of our hostagesnin Iran. As for the Soviets, Williamsnholds that we have nothing to fearnfrom them, for even if the Soviet Unionnwere to replace us as “the superior imperialnpower,” we “do not stand to losenmuch by that” since “a rational conceptionnof American security . . . does notndepend upon the kind of global superiority”nthat we have enjoyed from 1945nuntil recently. Apparently we do notnstand to lose much because Americannimperialism is fundamentally the samenas Soviet imperialism, which suggestsnthat America is fundamentally the samenas the Soviet Union. It seems that Empirenas a Way of Life could just as wellnhave been written about the SovietnnnUnion—though as it stands it couldnvery well have been written in thenSoviet Union.nBut what if America were, or hadnbeen, an imperial power.” Is there nondifference between an “empire for liberty”n(Jefferson’s phrase) and an empirenfor tyranny.^ Why is empire per se annevil? Williams gives no clear answer tonthis simple question, except to suggestnthat the assertion of rule or “power” bynone independent people over another,nor even by one “unit of population”nover another, is somehow wrong. Butnhow does a population become a “people,”nand what entitles a people to indenpendence? Here he might have resorted,nas American statesmen have for twonhundred years, to the Declaration ofnIndependence as an authoritative guidento the principles of free government.nInstead he adverts to the Declaration,nat points scattered throughout the book,nas a Machiavellian charter justifying ansingle act of anti-imperialism for thensake of a thousand acts of future imperialism;nproclaiming the AmericannRevolution in order to silence all futurenrevolutions; dismantling the BritishnEmpire in order to build the Americannone.nIn fact neither part of his accusationnis true. The Declaration is not an anticolonialnor anti-imperial manifesto, butnneither is it the ideological expressionnof America’s secret ambitions. ThenDeclaration states simply that one peoplenhas decided “to dissolve the PoliticalnBands which have connected them withnanother,” bands which in better timesnit had consented to maintain. There isnno claim of an automatic right for colo-nJnly/Attgttst 1981n