Reason finally gets around to reviewing Ferguson’s Collossus (and a couple other books on American Imperialism) in Imperial Waltz:
Ferguson’s model is the British Empire, particularly the favorable economic impact of its former colonial system. Gazing at the wreckage of many a post-colonial state, he observes: “In many cases of economic ‘backwardness,’ a liberal empire can do better than [an independent] nation-state….The evidence that, in an increasingly protectionist world, Britain’s continued policy of free trade was beneficial to its colonies seems unequivocal. Between the 1870s and the 1920s the colonies’ share of Britain’s imports rose from a quarter to a third.” And everyone benefited: “The British Empire was an engine for the integration of international capital markets. Between 1865 and 1914 more than ?4 billion flowed from Britain to the rest of the world, giving the country a historically unprecedented and since unequaled position as global net creditor, the ‘world’s banker’ indeed, or, to be exact, the world’s bond market.”But Ferguson is not out to gloat; rather, he seeks a mechanism of both order and greater openness in an unruly world. And like American neocons, he believes the U.S. should not bar the use of force in spreading capitalism and democracy.