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Article: Are there cracks appearing in the American empire as they did in ours a century ago? A N Wilson reflects on how swiftly the twilight of a world power can follow on its noon
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- August 21, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2005 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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History teaches us that no world power dominates the scene for
ever. At present, America looks like the unconquerable superpower.
Yet perhaps there are signs, if we could but read them, of cracks in
the structure which a shrewd surveyor would see as fatal.
Churchill, the dominant figure in British history when Britain
itself was the dominant world power, believed in two things with
passion. One was the British Empire. The other was the struggle
against communism. Yet his victory over Germany was achieved by
alliance with the Soviet dictatorship, and with an American
administration which made it their business systematically,
economically and politically, to dismantle the Empire in which ...