Discussants' Reactions

1962 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-129
Author(s):  
James Bowen

The past few years have been particularly troublesome for the American people, not the least of the worries being a concern with the Russian challenge to the American way of life. The incredible successes of the Russians in orbiting satellites and exploding nuclear weapons has been both a disturbing and a sobering thought to the United States, long secure in its isolation and power, and in the belief that it was the best society on earth. More than a decade ago an enduring Pax Americana based upon the unilateral possession of the atomic bomb disappeared; with the launching of various Sputniki since 1958 morale has dropped even lower.

1941 ◽  
Vol 1 (S1) ◽  
pp. 86-95
Author(s):  
R. M. Havens

During the past decade the rapid spread of governmental activities into new fields and their extension within the fields that had previously been entered have increased the attention always given to the question of the legitimate sphere of activity for the Federal Government. There has been a widespread assumption that throughout the nineteenth century with only insignificant exceptions this country followed a policy of laissez-faire. From this assumption many people have proceeded to argue that in the past decade the American people have suddenly turned from the tradition which made this the greatest industrial nation of the world and have adopted a course which leads away from the “American way of life.”


2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Steinmetz

The widespread embrace of imperial terminology across the political spectrum during the past three years has not led to an increased level of conceptual or theoretical clarity around the word “empire.” There is also disagreement about whether the United States is itself an empire, and if so, what sort of empire it is; the determinants of its geopolitical stance; and the effects of “empire as a way of life” on the “metropole.” Using the United States and Germany in the past 200 years as empirical cases, this article proposes a set of historically embedded categories for distinguishing among different types of imperial practice. The central distinction contrasts territorial and nonterritorial types of modern empire, that is, colonialism versus imperialism. Against world-system theory, territorial and nonterritorial approaches have not typi-cally appeared in pure form but have been mixed together both in time and in the repertoire of individual metropolitan states. After developing these categories the second part of the article explores empire's determinants and its effects, again focusing on the German and U.S. cases but with forays into Portuguese and British imperialism. Supporters of overseas empire often couch their arguments in economic or strategic terms, and social theorists have followed suit in accepting these expressed motives as the “taproot of imperialism” (J. A. Hobson). But other factors have played an equally important role in shaping imperial practices, even pushing in directions that are economically and geopolitically counterproductive for the imperial power. Postcolonial theorists have rightly empha-sized the cultural and psychic processes at work in empire but have tended to ignore empire's effects on practices of economy and its regulation. Current U.S. imperialism abroad may not be a danger to capitalism per se or to America's overall political power, but it is threatening and remaking the domestic post-Fordist mode of social regulation.


1981 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nacht

An examination of the past relationships between nuclear proliferation and American security policy substantiates several propositions. First, the political relationship between the United States and each new nuclear weapon state was not fundamentally transformed as a result of nuclear proliferation. Second, with the exception of the Soviet Union, no new nuclear state significantly affected U.S. defense programs or policies. Third, American interest in bilateral nuclear arms control negotiations has been confined to the Soviet Union. Fourth, a conventional conflict involving a nonnuclear ally prompted the United States to intervene in ways it otherwise might not have in order to forestall the use of nuclear weapons.In all respects, however, the relationship between nuclear proliferation and American security policy is changing. The intensification of the superpower rivalry and specific developments in their nuclear weapons and doctrines, the decline of American power more generally, and the characteristics of nuclear threshold states all serve to stimulate nuclear proliferation. It will be increasingly difficult in the future for American security policy to be as insulated from this process as it has been in the past.


Author(s):  
John Rowe

Among the immigrant groups which made a considerable contribution to the development of the United States and of the American way of life the Cornish people must be reckoned. Older accounts of the mining, camps of the Pacific Coast actually enumerate the “Cornish nationality” among the races that thronged to the gold and silver diggings. Yet, throughout the nineteenth century, British, census returns reveal that there were rarely more than a third of a million Cornish folk in the “old country”, and after 1861 their numbers declined. Yet this people impressed themselves upon the American scene, even on some of its most superficial observers, and this for a variety of reasons, apart from the local provincialisms created by geographic remoteness and physical difficulties of communication in the homeland until well into the “railway age”.


Ad Americam ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 29-40
Author(s):  
Barbara Machnik

This article deals with paleoconservative attitudes toward the issue of immigration to the United States and the problem of multiculturalism and assimilation on American soil. Representatives of paleoconservatism present these phenomena as a significant threat to the American way of life. Their words are filled with anxiety for the future of American society, which is instilled with the positive meaning of the idea of open borders, and which is becoming permeated with alien cultures and losing its own cultural identity. Starting with an explanation of the essence of the American nation’s homogeneity, this article presents the threats which come with the ‘mixing’ of cultures and liberal immigration as well as phenomena directly linked to such immigration, namely the problem of terrorism and Islam.


Author(s):  
Claudia Kotte

Born in Brno, Moravia, Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic, Adolf Loos was a critic, architect and designer famous for his vehement rejection of ornament. Educated in Dresden, Germany, he lived in the United States from 1893 to 1896 and developed a lifelong admiration for the American way of life. In 1896, he moved to Vienna, where he practiced for the longest period of his life. Loos’s main contribution to Modernism was, however, in the realm of theory and writing. In a 1908 essay entitled ‘Ornament and Crime’ he claimed that ‘the evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from objects of daily use’ (Bock and Loos: 167) Although his functional, rectilinear boxes such as Steiner House (1910) were met with little enthusiasm at the time, Loos’s buildings appear to anticipate the International Style of the 1920s as well as Le Corbusier’s (1887-1965) architectural purism. The stark exteriors of Loos’s work contrast with their sumptuous interiors, clad in rich woods or marble.


2017 ◽  
pp. 69-79
Author(s):  
Marcin Kowalczyk

The atomic bomb used in 1945 by the United States disturbed the military and symbolic balance of the world then. It became a sign of the Western power. The communist propaganda sought to neutralize the meaning of a new weapon. The text reconstructs the attempts of this neutralization and indicates the ways of presentation of nuclear weapons in the Polish poetry of socialist realism. Several motifs can be mentioned here: juxtaposition of the atomic bomb with apocalyptic motifs, highlighting the lack of intellectual and moral qualifications for possessing it, and emphasizing that it is a dangerous by-product of the Western desire for profit. Above all, however, the poetry of socialist realism underlined that Western culture is an incomprehensible and inhuman evil.


2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona S. Cunningham ◽  
M. Taylor Fravel

Whether China will abandon its long-standing nuclear strategy of assured retaliation for a first-use posture will be a critical factor in future U.S.-China strategic stability. In the past decade, advances in U.S. strategic capabilities, especially missile defenses and enhanced long-range conventional strike capacity, could undermine China's nuclear retaliatory capability, which is based on a relatively small force and second-strike posture. An exhaustive review of Chinese writings on military affairs indicates, however, that China is unlikely to abandon its current nuclear strategy of assured retaliation. Instead, China will modestly expand its arsenal, increase the sophistication of its forces, and allow limited ambiguity regarding its pledge not to use nuclear weapons first. This limited ambiguity allows China to use the threat of nuclear retaliation to deter a conventional attack on its nuclear arsenal, without significantly increasing the size of its nuclear forces and triggering a costly arms race. Nevertheless, China's effort to maintain its strategy of assured retaliation while avoiding an arms race could backfire. Those efforts increase the risk that nuclear weapons could be used in a crisis between the United States and China, even though China views this possibility as much less likely than the United States does.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogelio Saenz ◽  
Janie Filoteo ◽  
Aurelia Lorena Murga

The Latino population has grown significantly over the last few decades in the United States and population projections suggest that the number of Latinos will increase disproportionately, relative to other immigrant groups, in the coming decades. These trends have resulted in great concern among some who fear that Latinos, especially Mexicans, are not acculturating and assimilating into mainstream, White America. Fears of the “browning of America” and of Latinos' presumed threat to the American way of life have led some to call for measures to ensure the preservation of America's national identity. Samuel Huntington is the latest public figure to make such claims. This paper provides an overview of Huntington's claims as well as the responses that his work has drawn from supporters and critics. Using data from the 2000 5% Public Use Microdata Sample, we assess the validity of Huntington's claims by examining the extent to which Mexicans, the largest Latino subgroup, have integrated into the United States, basing our assessment on a variety of selected demographic, social, and economic indicators. The results suggest that Mexicans have integrated in various dimensions, with the level of integration increasing with length of residence in the United States. We conclude with a discussion of the historical and contemporary context in which Mexicans have been racialized in the United States.


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