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Article: The Limits of Empire: The United States and Southeast Asia Since World War II.(Review)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- September 22, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Limits of Empire: The United States and Southeast Asia Since World War II. By Robert J. McMahon. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 276. $45.00.)
The author of this book tells the story of "the dramatic rise and precipitous decline of the American empire in Southeast Asia" (x). Although there was a "complex mosaic of strategic, economic, psychological, and political" factors that led the United States to build an empire in Southeast Asia, this empire was not the product of "self-aggrandizing territorial or economic ambitions" (218). Rather, Robert J. McMahon argues, it was a "defensive empire" created to contain Soviet and Chinese expansion ...