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Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America, by Cullen Murphy
Fee Download Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America, by Cullen Murphy
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The rise and fall of ancient Rome has been on American minds from the beginning of our republic.Today we focus less on the Roman Republic than on the empire that took its place. Depending on who’s doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action or a dire warning of imminent collapse. In Are We Rome? the esteemed editor and author Cullen Murphy reveals a wide array of similarities between the two empires: the blinkered, insular culture of our capitals; the debilitating effect of bribery in public life; the paradoxical issue of borders; and the weakening of the body politic through various forms of privatization. Murphy persuasively argues that we most resemble Rome in the burgeoning corruption of our government and in our arrogant ignorance of the world outside -- two things that must be changed if we are to avoid Rome’s fate.
- Sales Rank: #351747 in Books
- Brand: Murphy, Cullen
- Published on: 2008-05-05
- Released on: 2008-05-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x .74" w x 5.50" l, .59 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Lurid images of America as a new Roman Empire—either striding the globe or tottering toward collapse, or both—are fashionable among pundits of all stripes these days. Vanity Fair editor Murphy (The World According to Eve) gives the trope a more restrained and thoughtful reading. He allows that, with its robust democracy, dynamic economy and technological wizardry, America is a far cry from Rome's static slave society. But he sees a number of parallels: like Rome, America is a vast, multicultural state, burdened with an expensive and overstretched military, uneasy about its porous borders, with a messianic sense of global mission and a solipsistic tendency to misunderstand and belittle foreign cultures. Some of the links Murphy draws, like his comparison of barbarian invaders of the late Empire to foreign corporations buying up American assets, are purely metaphorical. But others, especially his likening of the corrupt Roman patronage system to America's mania for privatizing government services—a "deflection of public purpose by private interest"—are specific and compelling. Murphy wears his erudition lightly and delivers a lucid, pithy and perceptive study in comparative history, with some sharp points. (May 10)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
Murphy writes that "Americans have been casting eyes back to ancient Rome since before the Revolution," and goes on to interrogate the comparisons drawn both by "triumphalists," who see the world’s only superpower in terms of the Roman Empire at its height, and by "declinists," who see America as "dangerously overcommitted abroad and rusted out at home," like Rome before its fall. Murphy makes telling points about the solipsism of political élites and the impact of corruption and cronyism on civil society, but he stops short of predicting America’s fall. (Indeed, he argues that it is simplistic to say that Rome fell.) Instead, he points to a malaise exemplified by the debasement of the term "franchise," once associated with freedom to vote, and now with commerce: "Here, in miniature, is the political history of America." Murphy prescribes antidotes, and finds grounds for cautious optimism in the words of Livy: "An empire remains powerful so long as its subjects rejoice in it."
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From Booklist
Murphy lists six parallels to support his argument of why the U.S. today is much like the Roman Empire: a powerful military but not enough people to fill it; a practice of contracting government work to private agencies; immigration problems and immigrant communities that threaten us from within; prideful ignorance about the outside world; accelerating decadent national character; and leaders influenced by moralizing religion and superstition. Murphy points out that the U.S. is seen as "dangerously overcommitted abroad and rusted out at home, like Rome in its last two centuries." He quotes the historian and columnist Chalmers Johnson: "Roman imperial sorrows mounted up over hundreds of years. Ours are likely to arrive with the speed of FedEx." Murphy, editor at large at Vanity Fair, believes that improvement is possible. Whether readers agree with him or not, the book is bound to be persuasive and provocative. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
100 of 105 people found the following review helpful.
An Impressive and Elegant Warning
By John D. Cofield
Are We Rome? is a short but highly important examination of the fall of the Roman Empire and its implications for the twenty-first century United States. Cullen Murphy begins by acknowledging that many parallels between Rome and America have been drawn over the years. The similarities and differences he draws, however, differ from those made by other writers and historians in that he focuses on the moods and attitudes of the two empires at their apogees.
Here Murphy finds much which will alarm concerned Americans today. He notes that both Rome and the US have had similar beliefs in their own exceptionalism, that somehow both Romans and Americans are superior to the rest of the world and thus need take little notice of the opinions of others. He observes that both empires saw foreigners as being inferior and somewhat contemptible, fearing their influence while at the same time coming to rely on them more and more. Most interestingly, Murphy sees in both societies a reluctance to take part in public life and to adequately finance public services.
While Murphy sees much over which to be concerned in modern America, he is not completely pessimistic. He calls for Americans to take a greater interest in the outside world while at the same time taking the problems we face within our society more seriously.
Throughout this short (206 pages plus notes) work Murphy writes with a wit and flair that, despite the somber nature of most of the material, helps to inspire his readers. It is a breath of fresh air to read such trenchant observations amidst the obfuscation and blame-throwing which unfortunately has come to characterize political debate today.
63 of 67 people found the following review helpful.
too close for comfort
By Daniel B. Clendenin
Comparisons between Rome and America are as old as our founding fathers, and thus the picture of Horatio Greenough's marble statue of George Washington on the cover of this book; he looks like a Roman caesar in his toga. Today "triumphalists" celebrate the comparison and want to export America as a model to the world, while "declinists" lament the similarities and warn about over-extension, arrogance and fall. But are we Rome? Murphy, former managing editor of the Atlantic Monthly for twenty years and currently editor at large for Vanity Fair, stakes a middle ground: "In a thousand specific ways, the answer is obviously no. In a handful of important ways, the answer is certainly yes" (p. 197).
After a short prologue, Murphy devotes one chapter each to six parallels of "direct relevance" between ancient Rome and modern America. Both empires exhibit the symptoms of solipsism-- an exaggerated self-identity, the isolating effects of exceptionalism, ignorance of others, the presumptions of privilege, and sheer arrogance. Militarism characterizes both societies. Today America has 700 bases in 60 countries, and in any one year will conduct "operations" of some sort in 170 countries. Murphy suggests that our military is both "too large to be affordable, and too small to do everything it is asked to do." He then turns to how America has blurred the distinctions between the private and public (government) sectors, "the deflection of public purpose by private interest." Outsourcing government responsibilities might be effective and even necessary, but selling the public good for private profit isn't. The fourth parallel between Rome and America is the disdain with which both view outsiders ("barbarians") as inferior. Fifth, Murphy explores the complex notion of borders, both literal (eg, immigration) and figurative. Finally, in his epilogue he examines the "inherent complexity" of large empires like Rome and America. Are they ungovernable?
Rome's empire lasted for a thousand years, and in many obvious ways its "decline and fall" did not mean it simply disappeared. When I have traveled to places like Egypt or China that have had continuous civilizations for thousands of years, and consider that America is just 200 years old--barely a blip on the graph of historical time--I resonate with historically-minded intellectuals like Murphy and their "brutal reminder of impermanence." I find it hard to imagine what America might look like a mere thousand years from now. For his part, Murphy is not overly pessimistic; he urges the country to be more rather than less like the America our founders imagined.
57 of 60 people found the following review helpful.
Helpful but not totally satisfying
By Stephen C. Jordan
To recap some of the salient points already made -- it is short, pithy, and an enjoyable read, the erudition is clearly there, but it doesn't overwhelm the reader. Mr. Murphy focuses mostly on the comparison between the Rome of the 1st - 4th century AD to the U.S. in drawing his six analogies. He has a bit of a liberal bias, but not crazy liberal, and it is a shame that he doesn't include maps and pictures for our ADD-driven, multimedia culture. So far so good.
What I liked about the book is that it is clearly a subject that is close to the bone for the author. He's visited Hadrian's wall and Rome, he's walked the halls of Congress and among the ruins of the Capitoline Hill. He's read his Gibbon, Appian, Livy, Tacitus, etc. Even the casual student of Roman history will acknowledge the author's fluency in the classical materials. I learned some things I didn't know about Roman archaeology and current Roman studies. (Oddly, I didn't have the feeling that he was as well-versed in American political thought.)
I also liked the provocative questions that he raised about our hubris, our military-industrial complex, our borders, our culture etc. because in the end, a book like this isn't about Rome at all, it's about us, who are we? where are we going? what are we doing? how can we have a little more self-knowledge?
But, I don't think he went far enough or even that he chose the right era. I'm going to be writing about all of this soon, but let's just put it this way -- within 100 years of the third Punic War and the fall of Carthage, Rome went from being a republic with a dominant oligarchy and free lower middle class with a near-universal commitment to public service to the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, and a city where a third of the inhabitants were on the dole.
This is the era where I believe the parallels are truly striking, and where a truly profound study would have begun -- with the increasing separation of the military from the populace, the increasing gridlock and crisis affecting political office-holders, the electoral degradation, the moral degradation of the elite aristocracy, the decline of a sense of public purpose.
So you see, the purpose of the author isn't really about holding up a mirror to us about ourselves as a regime, he is interested in holding up a mirror to us about how we come across vis-a-vis others -- whether immigrants, Iraqis, or sophisticated, liberally-educated Europeans.
This is why my conclusion is that this is a helpful, interesting, and yes, provocative, book, but why it is ultimately not totally satisfying. Definitely worth reading however.
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