Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—and Why They Fall by Amy Chua

Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—and Why They Fall Reviews

• 
  Jayson

  (B+) 76% | Good
  Notes: Not a particularly contentious thesis, but well argued. Though repetitive, it spotlights the nuances of each case study.
• 
  Marc

  Amy Chua's theory is that really great empires, - she calls them hyperpowers -, only thrived when they were tolerant (internal and/or external), and they went down when they gave up this tolerance and became xenophobic. An interesting these, which she illustrates amply with reference to the Persians, Romans, Chinese, Mongolians, Brittons and finally Americans. Her theory seems plausible in the sense that tolerance surely plays a role in the state of an empire. But she looks at history too one-dimensionally. Tolerance not only can be a cause, but also a by-product, a consequence of greatness, and vice versa. So, it's necessary to take this read with a pinch of salt. See my more elaborate review on my Sense-of-History-account:
  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
• 
  Sense of History

  Despite some weaknesses, this is quite an interesting read. Chua's approach is simple: there only have been a handful of real hyperpowers in human history: the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Chinese Tang Empire, the Mongolian empire, the British Empire and now the American Empire. These hyperpowers were very divergent in character, but they had 1 thing in common: their rise was caused by a form of strategic tolerance for the people they dominated, and their decline was due to giving up this tolerance and instead focusing on maintaining their 'purity'. Chua illustrates this with the above-mentioned examples, quite detailed and in general well argumented. And fortunately, she also nuances her approach and expressly mentions at the beginning and the end of each chapter that besides the tolerance issue many other factors were involved in the rise and fall of an empire.
  
  But nevertheless, there are a few issues with this approach. To start with, she supports the story of the rise of various empires with quotations from primary sources in which the generosity of the rulers is highlighted; that is questionable, because it is a classic ingredient of primary sources, especially chronicles, to emphasize both the cruelty and the generosity of the rulers. Secondly, there are some minor historical errors. For example, Chua highlights the ultra-cosmopolitanism of the Mongolian empire, while recent literature agrees that this was a romantic exaggeration. Occasionally there is also clear 'bias': her negativity about the Spanish empire in the 16-17th century is very pronounced, but it is based on one-sided sources, and it is inversely proportional to her positivity about the Dutch Republic (for example: as one of the reasons for the Dutch uprising she mentions the linguistic ignorance of the Spanish leadership, but also the leader of the breakaway Holland-coalition, William of Orange, hardly spoke a word of Dutch!).
  
  There’s also extravagant attention for the share of the Jews in the rise of the different empires: wherever possible, she puts this in the spotlight. Of course, the fate of the Jewish community certainly is pre-eminently indicator for the degree of tolerance in a certain empire, but the excess of detail is striking in comparison with other foreign populations. Indirectly Chua feeds (undoubtedly against her will) classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that saw the hand of the Jews everywhere.
  
  My main objection to her theory is a form of tunnel vision that she introduces. It can be refreshing to view history from a certain angle, as in this case the concept of tolerance. But Chua makes a direct causal connection between tolerance and the greater prosperity and domination of empires. she always presents it as a one-way-connection; and that’s strange. It could well be that tolerance is not so much a cause but a consequence of the prosperous growth of a state, as a luxury that can be afforded because of the military-political-economic strength. Conversely, the loss of tolerance may be the result of the loss of strength and power in those other areas. Something tells me that this relationship is much more complex than Chua proposes.
  
  In general I can appreciate Chua's approach: to study the past in order to draw lessons for the present is a courageous task, and it's necessary. But it has to be done carefully.
• 
  J.B. B.

  There is lots of great information in this book, and a brilliant conclusion. I was actually considering doing ressearch about the same topic, and i saw her interview so i had to read. I have 2 quotes in my 'quotes' page here, that i found in this book. such eye opening and original material.
  
  I would like to point out though that the tone is very repetitive and this book could have probably been about 1/3 shorter. it took a sincere interest in re-learning this stuff for me to finish it. the writing is strong, but is not a very fluid tone in my opinion. i needed this history update, and for me this is a background for my grad studies in finance. The author is one of the head law professors at Yale. you could almost re-title this 'history of the capitalist world.'
  
  so, a great read if you are interested in the topic enough to trudge through the slow parts. for someone not as patient, i've heard 'guns, germs, and steel' and also a new book ' power & plenty' (finlay /o'rourke)-also a long one- are also good comptemporaries.
  I agree 100% with her theory that unity and tolerance create an empire; and lack of will break it apart. ...heed usa
• 
  Jason Pettus

  (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)
  
  Almost everyone agrees by now that the United States currently wields an enormous amount of power and influence over the rest of the world; but does that give us the right to call the US an "empire," at least as how we traditionally define the word? After all, the US isn't trying to actively annex or colonize any foreign lands, has no interest in adding more states to the 50 we already own; we do have a vested interest, however, in seeing American-owned businesses do well in these foreign lands, a commonality among many empires throughout the ages, and we're not afraid to use military force to achieve those aims, yet another commonality. We spread the idea of free-election democracies and free-market capitalism, but then insist that the countries we deal with adopt such measures themselves, or suffer the wrath of an imposed democracy through the barrel of a gun.
  
  Perhaps it's better, then, says bestselling essayist and futurist Amy Chua in her new book Day of Empire, to think of the United States instead as a "hyperpower" -- not necessarily an empire or republic or kingdom dealing with all their warring neighbors, but literally a society that has gained unquestioned dominance over the entire planet at once, or at least whatever part of the planet was known to those people at that point in history. If you define it this way, Chua says, then you can actually see a clear line of hyperpowers stretching back chronologically to Cyrus' Persian Empire of 500 BC, with other such infamous societies as the Roman Empire, Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire, and even the Dutch Republic of the 1600s falling on this line as well; and what's more, you can actually see very obvious similarities between such groups when you align them in this fashion, lessons that can be applied to the US as well at this particular moment in history (the moment we're about to lose our hyperpower status, that is). And indeed, that's something else Chua convincingly does throughout the book as well, is show example after example of powerful empires that never did make it to hyperpower status -- the Ottoman Empires of history, the Spanish Inquisitions, the 20th-century fascist states -- and proves that none of them heeded the lessons about hyperpowers that she points out in this manuscript, thus reinforcing her theories about such societies' rises and falls even more.
  
  So what exactly are the grand secrets about such hyperpowers that Chua discovers? Well, nothing too terribly surprising, if you really stop and think about; basically, that time after time after time, all hyperpowers in history saw their ascendency during a time when they embraced tolerance, when the society itself welcomed different religions and points of view and skill sets and culinary palettes, that the powerful combination of work power and brain power is what vaulted these societies into hyperpower status in the first place. And consequently, in example after example after example, where these hyperpowers started to fall is when they suddenly stopped being tolerant, when success and laziness and a drop in societal education turned the populace into xenophobic, superstitious zealots; time after time, Chua shows how such an attitude has driven away the very people and resources that made that society so powerful, usually right into the arms of another society on the rise that is happy to accept the resources. That's why this line of so-called hyperpowers seems sometimes to be an unbroken stretch from one society to the next for the last 2,500 years; because mainly it's a history of huge groups of people fleeing from one region of the world to the next, all the Jews with their money and scientists with their heretical ideas, and let's not even start with those dirty, dirty bohemians. Every time such groups are forced to flee one hyperpower because of rising intolerance, Chua convincingly argues here, these are always the moments those hyperpowers begin their downfalls; and whatever society ends up embracing these refugees tends to become the next hyperpower in history, which makes a lot of sense when it's explained that way.
  
  And indeed, Chua's book is full of such "ah hah, yes, you're so right" moments, conclusions that make so much logical sense when you read them but that you had never really thought of yourself before this book; this manuscript is very much a reflection of the law professor Chua is during the day, moving very logically from one step to the next to the next. In fact, this might be the most interesting thing of all about Day of Empire, is that Chua does such a great job of pointing out the surprising amount of similarities from one hyperpower to the next; from Greek emperors bowing before Egyptian gods to Queen Victoria declaring herself the Empress of India, Chua creates an unshakable argument through facts and historical records of how important such religious tolerance and surface-level gestures have been to every single hyperpower in existence, no matter how those gestures are actually expressed from one decade to the next. In fact, as painful as it is, Chua also convincingly argues here how close such "evil" societies throughout history came to becoming long-term and secure ones, if they had only embraced such tolerance a little more themselves; to use one chilling example, how the Nazis would've probably gotten World War II called off as a stalemate, and survived well into our times, if they had only been able to embrace Russians, Poles and Czechs as equals and work out some kind of mutually beneficial truce. If not for the Holocaust, if not for their official policy of considering all their neighbors vermin, the Nazis could've very well "won" WWII precisely by not losing it; and this is the case with almost all the not-quite-hyperpowers in history, Chua argues, from the Spanish Empire embracing the Inquisition during the Dark Ages to China's Ming Empire embracing isolationism after the devastation of the Mongol Hoard.
  
  It's an intriguing and thought-provoking book, one that will really have you looking at America's position in the world in a different way, wondering how we too might be able to "softly transition" out of hyperpower status like Great Britain did a century ago (a point in history Chua clearly admires), or if we are doomed to crash and burn like the old hyperpowers who never learned these lessons. Combined with the last section of this manuscript, a look at the rising regions and coming powers of the world (mostly the EU, China and India), it's a great primer as to how powerful societies get things right, where things go wrong, and what we can likely expect in global politics over the next 25 years. Day of Empire is a fast-moving, plainly-written book, one of those great nonfiction accounts geared towards a general populace that I love so much; not only policy wonks but simply those wanting to know a little more on the subject will find the book a real asset, and it gets a big recommendation from me today.
  
  Out of 10: 9.3
• 
  Thao Ngo

  Increasingly relevant book in the time when more intolerance, xenophobia, and nationalism is on the rise. I started this book a few years ago, and back then, questioning the leading role of the American hyperpower never even crossed my mind. Now, it is more probable to consider whether America is still a world superpower and if it is, for how much longer? Is it in the best interest of the American people to be a world hyperpower? Who will replace America as the next center of influence? The book was easy to digest even for someone who doesn't read history like me thanks to great storytelling skills from the author.
• 
  Najeeb Qazi

  "To achieve not regional but world dominance, a society must attract, command the loyalty of, and motivate the world's most valuable human capital."
  
  Amy Chua puts forth her conclusion for a society to achieve unparalleled hegemony, the bedrock of which according to her, is tolerance . From superpowers of the past such as the Persian empire, the great Roman empire, ravaging but surprisingly tolerant Mongol empire, magnificent Islamic Caliphates to British Monarchy, she carefully analyses the rise and the fall of each of them and finds how tolerance led to rise of these empires and xenophobia and hatred eventually led to their downfall. Though published in 2007, this proves to be more than relevant considering the current world scenario. Asserting that America has earned the title of a hyperpower, she puts forth issues it has to tackle to remain a global power.
  The knowledge in this book is immense and sometimes you have to labor through heavy factual parts. But through the book you travel far and wide, from fallen Ming dynasties to the deathbed of the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb.
  There are lessons to be learnt from the past, now important, more than ever- lest we fall to the empty rhetoric of our political leaders.
  
  "Over the centuries, there has been a slow but relentless transformation in what it means - and what it takes- to be a hyperpower. Reduced to its simplest terms, this transformation has been a shift from conquest to commerce, from invasion to immigration, from autocracy to democracy."
  
  
• 
  Hubert

  In my mind a much better book than
  World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability; I think her arguments are more lucid and less repetitive. Though Chua will need more historical evidence backing up the assertion that ethnic, religious, and political tolerance is what causes empires to grow and persist, it's cool to read how the various empires and their relationships to their variegated subjects might be related to one another. Each chapter covers a different empire or hyperpower, from a different time period. It's most useful to read about the civilizations about which one know very little about (I think the chapter on the Mongols and Genghis Khan is particularly informative).
• 
  Heidi

  If you're interested in empires and spend any time conteplating America's situation in the world today, I highly recommend this well-written book.
  
  I saw this writer on CSpan Book TV in January, and was fascinated by her ideas about empire, particularly since I had just returned from my first trip to Spain.
  
  Ms. Chua does a great job of condensing the pertinent information of historical empires into this book and then looking for the constants in every empire.
  
  Although most of the book is about empires throughout history, she does discuss America and whether or not it is truly an empire. I really appreciated the way she looks at the modern American situation, pointing out both the negatives and positives. She definitely doesn't rant and gives a keen perspective on our country's present situation.
• 
  Marks54

  This is another well written and sharp book by Amy Chua, a contract law professor at Yale, on why empires (or "Hyperpowers") rise and fall. The punchline is generally that the reasons why they rise are also the reasons why they fall -- or you can get too much openness, expansion, diversity, entrepreneurship, etc. The story generally seems to work although I doubt it would sustain much hard scrutiny on the details. That is not the point, however. It tells a plausible and interesting story well and prompts you to think much more about it - with obvious reference to current developments in the American empire. It was a quick read and rewarding, even given the limitations of global history.
• 
  Stephanie Callahan

  Chronological study of world "hyperpowers" culminating in a discussion of the place that the United States might take in the 21st century. She uses primarily secondary sources to write the histories of the earlier hyperpowers, which makes me hesitant to give out 5 stars. I would like to see research that better supports her definition of what constitutes a hyperpower before delving into such a thorough analysis and comparison of these civilizations. Ultimately I found the last few chapters most interesting, where Chua theorizes about potential competitors to U.S. economic supremacy and offers potential ways that the U.S. can earn back some of the respect they have lost abroad.
• 
  Peter

  Nice for an overview of some of the largest empires in history. But the concise information on each empire makes it not that informative for the average student that took A level history. As an explanation of the phenomenon of empire/hyperpower, it falls short, because of its monocausal explanation, which is not too strong too begin with - especially when the modern notion of tolerance gets into the mix.
• 
  Herman

  Amy Chua is really a great story teller.
  The book is a wonderful page turner.
  Tolerance and Glue concept could be applied to universally...to the states, to the organizations...
• 
  Donald Broussard

  A very timely book addressing a timely question -- why do empires (like, say, our current Pax Americana) fall? Amy Chua presents the case they fall due to intolerance of their minorities. She provides examples of Achaemenid Persia [and later, indirectly, some allusion to Safavid], Mughal India, Mongol China, British India, and Tang China.
  
  In some cases it seems she wants to hold dearly to such tolerance even while noting how potentially problematic it can be: "while tolerance was essential to both Rome's rise to world power and its maintenance of the Pax Romana, it also sowed the seeds of Rome's eventual disintegration." Again with the Tang dynasty in China, imposed by a Turkic-Chinese emperor, the same problem of assimilation remains: "Because [Tang China] did not try to impose a 'Han' Chinese identity on their non-Chinese subjects, they left intact large subcommunities with distinct cultural, ethnic, and religious bonds." [p 330.] The Tang fell, as the Romans and Mughal did, when the religious in power went on a pogram against those minorities they had formerly tolerated.
  
  The book makes interesting points, taking America now to be more like Achaemenid Persia than its usual Rome when we presumed our global free market, consumerism would Americanize other nations like Iraq. She notes that under Persia the Greeks felt they were Greeks and spoke Greek, where Rome was much more effective at Romanizing the language of its disparate holdings.
  
  This also means a view of why Rome fell: "At the Roman Empire's peak, Africans, Spaniards, Britons, and Gauls alike could rise to the highest echelons of power -- indeed, could even become emperor -- as long as they assimilated. The empire sank when it let in peoples that it failed to assimilate, either because they were unassimilable or because their culture and habits exceeded the limits of Roman tolerance. Out of a mixture of religious and ethnic intolerance, Rome sparked wars and internal rebellions it could not win. It was precisely when the empire sought to maintain the 'purity' of Roman blood, culture, and religion -- replicating the mistake that Claudius and later Gibbon imputed to ancient Athens and Sparta -- that Rome spiraled downward into disintegration and oblivion." [p 58].
  
  There may be debate on what events like Adrianople had to do with that fall, but she is correct finding a change in the aim of the soldiers: under Julius Caesar they were much more likely to Romanize enough for the system to work. By the time of Valens, that changed, and the Goths who fled the Huns into Roman lands did not become a Romanized bulwark against the Huns. They brought down Valens. I hoped for a discussion about the migrants under Valens and how Rome's mismanagement of that led to Adrianople, but that battle is not discussed. It would have fit in nicely with her thesis, as the Goths who came in met corrupt Roman officials who lost their trust. Instead she briskly gets to the 5th century Goths when Honorius purged Stilicho, but by then the problem had decades to fester.
  
  I suspect conservatives reading this book will wonder how to get the migrants to assimilate under some political or national banner, as her thesis seems to imply such assimilation is needed. The Achaemenids, she states, never had that "overarching political identity," resting only on military power. SO when a better military came with Alexander, the people throughout the Persian empire merely changed sides; "they were not traitors, because they had never been patriots." The Romans came closest it seems to creating such a syncretic package to offer, combining Roman culture many adopted into their own lives. Chua attributes much of this to "Rome's color-blind and surprisingly class-blind approach to citizenship" that spread Roman culture. [How class-blind the Romans were, when they divided their elites into patricians and plebeians, and based Senatorial election on property qualifications, is debatable.]
  
  The Romans "encouraged subjugated elites to accept the Roman cultural formula, creating a political and economic system that rewarded assimilation." Such assimilation seems to be a key in the many areas now grappling with the question of allowing immigrants to cross their borders.
• 
  Cha

  Illustrated the slow but relentless transformation of what it means and what it takes to be a global hyperpower -- the historical shift from land and naval conquest to commerce, from invasion to immigration, from autocracy to democracy. Strong historical evidences as to how religious tolerance shaped and made the borders of the globe, as well as the innate hindrances of having one universally-pushed religion towards a more respecting and inclusive society.
  
  Increasingly relevant despite more than a decade since it was written -- its thesis presented the historical and obvious advantages of strategic tolerance (amongst culture, religion, race, socioeconimic backgrounds) to the growth of hyperpowers but it did also predict its plaguing consequences, evident with the current growing backlash of image against the United States resulting to actions that changed the world (ISIS, growing separation of former "allies" onto the superpower challenger China, growing internal division post-Iraq and xenophobia against neighbouring Latin American immigrants). I also particularly liked the presentation of irony: having the world expecting a hyperpower to step up to aid the racial cleansing civil wars of non-territories (e.g. Developed countries to Rwanda in the past) at the same time despise its interventionalist approach -- that bleak line of when to come in and aid in resolution of wars and how far to influence til the rest of the world views the intervention as economic manipulation.
  
  An update is in order (as this was written before EU's great Greek bailout, retaliation of US to ISIS and its aftereffect to EU and generally all developed countries that used to have fairly relaxed immigration policies). And the new up and rising challenger --perhaps Canada.
• 
  Raf

  I found this book to be very interesting and informative. Amy Chua certainly did her research on this. The thesis of the book is that successful nations evolve through the tolerance, integration, and mixture of various cultures and nationalities. Examples such as Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great and even the U.S. have certainly demonstrated that. There were also examples of how purist nations such as Japan and Germany of World War II and other historical societies have fallen apart because of purism. However, it seems that there is a point where too much tolerance can also create infighting and significant power struggles which becomes a natural by-product of various growing factions. I couldn’t stop but think how fighting against our natural tribal instincts can be so difficult while at the same time acknowledging that history continues to show the complexity of it.
  The chapters in the book were brief, which is understandable. If would take volumes to cover each historical period and nation thoroughly. However, if you want a general but concise understanding of how empires rose and fell throughout world history, this is an excellent book to read. The chapters are very organized and packed with intriguing information. At the end of the day, it is easy to see and understand how history repeats itself.
  
• 
  Sami Eerola

  Interesting argument that for me always was obvious: empires need to be open and accepting of subjugated peoples because it is very difficult to stretch the empires own native population to all its conquered territories and at the same time keep the conquered peoples passive. It is easer to just incorporate the conquered populations on the empires administration, army and commerce than just to enslave or kill them all. Chua shows in her book that the biggest and king lasting empires, called "hyper powers" where all very open and multicultural, exactly because it was strategically wise.
  
  The problem with this book is that it is a bit confusing, because it tries to argument that imperialism is good actually and at the same time argued that US does not need to be a empire, just a hegemonic hyper power. Then the book has a very neoliberal take on imperialism, arguing that empire is needed to advance humanity and in today's world that entails the combination of free market capitalism and military power. This are the books assumptions that Chua does not elaborate much. Reading this book i was asking, why we should strive for imperialism or some kind of one word super governement? Especially when Chua herself shows in her book that eventually all empire fail and brake. So why try?
• 
  Carlos

  This was an interesting, if not airtight, argument for the importance of (relative) tolerance in forging and maintaining global hegemony. Chua runs through the predominant powers throughout history, specifically those that managed to obtain unquestionable dominance without rivals, and seeks to highlight the significant role played by (relative) tolerance in their growth while equally highlight its growing absence during their decay. From Achaemenid Persia to the height of the Roman Empire, Tang China, the Mongol Khanate, the Dutch and British Empires up to post-Cold War US, Chua chronicles the way these hegemons were able to attract talent fleeing the ethnic and religious conflicts that weakened their rivals. While she acknowledges that (relative) tolerance is not in and of itself sufficient to rise to global hegemony she also highlights the lack of it in those empires that were not able to obtain unparalleled dominance such as the Spanish Empire, the Mughal Empire, Ming China and, especially, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Quite honestly this was an interesting run through history’s greatest powers and the choices that increased or limited their growth.
• 
  Jeremy Perron

  In short, the secret ingredient to a power turning into a great `hyperpower' is tolerance. Not that being tolerant makes a nation a great power but it was essential to these already established powers to become the predominant power of their day, or as Chua defines it a `hyperpower.' More then a superpower, hyperpowers are completely dominant in their sphere of the world with no rivals. To become a hyperpower, a nation must become tolerant as a prerequisite, and pulling away from that tolerance is what causes the hyperpower to crack.
  
  Now the word `tolerance' is something that must be taken relatively. Relative to the world and civilizations around them during the hyperpowers' time period, and how the each hyperpower allows for social mobility and meritocracy.
  
  "Finally, the concept is relative tolerance. In the race for world dominance, what matters most is not whether a society is tolerant according to some absolute, timeless standard, but whether it is more tolerant than its competitors. Because tolerance is a relative matter, even the tolerated groups may be subject to harshly inequitable treatment. Russian Jews in the late nineteenth century found America a haven compared to the pogroms they were fleeing, but were still subjected to anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish quotas in the United States.
  
  I am not arguing that tolerance is a sufficient condition for world dominance. No matter how tolerant, the Kingdom of Bhutan is unlikely ever to become a global hegemon. It is always a confluence of additional factors--geography, population, natural resources, and leadership, to name just a few--that leads to the rare emergence of a world-dominant power. Pure luck plays a part, too. Even in the most propitious circumstances, a society's ability to achieve and maintain global dominance will also depend, for example, on the state of the competition." p.xxiv
  
  With each case she briefly exams the history of the particular hyperpower, comparing it with the other powers that existed during its time, and following each case from their inception to the moment they rise to become a hyperpower, and there eventual downfall. Chua examines what made these powers different from others and what was their great undoing. Moreover, the continuing theme is each of these powers is they are more tolerant than their rivals are. Some of the civilizations she discuses are as follows:
  
  · The Achaemenid Persian Empire was, as Chua describes, was the world's first real hyperpower. Crushing its opponents Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt, Persia was far more powerful than anyone they came across. The Persians allowed the subjects to worship their local gods; even the King of Persia would pay homage to local gods in their own lands. This increased the King's image and legitimacy with his own subjects. Even Alexander who brought that empire down would emulate that strategy.
  
  · Ancient Rome, during the period known as the High Empire, is also sighted for its tolerance of its subjects, not only allowing local populations to worship their own gods but even extending their citizenship and their very definition of what a `Roman' was. Rome was able to create a since of unity throughout their empire which allowed them to maintain their hold on such a large area.
  
  · The Tang Empire of Ancient China, how the Emperor Gaozu allowed for the Han Chinese and `barbarians' such as the Turks to intermix and marry and have it be socially acceptable. This allowed for a more inclusive empire and one that is far easier to govern.
  
  · The Mongol Empire broke down traditional clans into military units that would show loyalty to the army unit that they use to show with male blood ties. Genghis Kahn himself would recruit people into his army who had skills they lacked, regardless of that individuals background.
  
  · The Dutch World Empire, Holland in becoming a refuge for victims of religious persecution, allowed the very tiny place to assume a huge brain trust. With almost all smart and talented people from various groups, they were able to build a massive colonial empire. Although they were nowhere near as nice to their colonial subjects as they were the people at home.
  
  · The British Empire mimicked much of what the Dutch did to achieve success. This was accomplished in part because of the overthrow of King James II and replacing him with King William III* who was also the Prince of Orange and Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. Great Britain, much larger than tiny Holland would assume Dutch policies and create for itself an empire to which the sun would not set.
  
  · And of course, the United States of America is the modern hyperpower. The United States attracted immigrants from all over Europe, American society allowed for a great deal of social mobility, allowing people such Alexander Hamilton to go from bastard immigrant to Secretary of the Treasury.
  
  Now any student of history knows many of these `tolerant' nations were not really that `tolerant' as we would now define it. However as previously stated what matters is relative tolerance. In addition, through most of those examples tolerance was something that involved. The United States today is attractive place for people all over the world; that might not have been the case when we practiced legalized segregation.
  
  The book also deals with what went wrong with the hyperpowers, often how turning away from their more tolerant traditions either caused or hastened their downfall. Chua also deals with some potential future hyperpowers, discussing some of their strengths and drawbacks. Whether any of these `potential powers' will one day be able to challenge the United States remains to be seen.
  
  Throughout the work, Chua also discusses her own life, family history, and relates her experiences to the material creating are very flowing narrative that intellectual but nevertheless is easy to understand. The book is very enjoyable and informative.
  
  *Technically, Queen Mary II as well but it was really more William.
• 
  David

  a great read today....the second great political history book Amy has written: key to the super hyper power: tolerance to accept, welcome and fuse of the foreigners strategically into making a kingdom great: Tang Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, British Empire, the Dutch and especially Roman and Persian Empire...definitely not all of Chinese except Tang Dynasty, Japanese, NADAP Germany...Spartan...all of these so called pure-blooded country cannot fully exploit the power of different races within a country that can turn into potentially hyperpower of "innovations"...another worthy book to read is World on Fire which is simply awesome about western democracy cannot simply be accepted in Asia...(mockery to fake American democracy exporting to the world) the American democracy is exporting the system but does not allow foreign countries to participate...remote domination...which only initiate anti-American imperialism...my own take on USA....it is falling of its hyper power state..not India due to its internal racially divided cast system and definitely not China at this point....
• 
  rmw

  It was 7:45 in the morning when my brother threw this book on my bed and said, "Here." The activity of my day was determined.
  My brother read this book as a prequel to his high school world history class and really enjoyed it. For me, it has been more than 4 years since I've studied world history, but this book provided a nice recollection and newly inspired fascination with the subject. This book is succinctly condensed with a notable thesis which allows for the fleshing out of great feats and hamartias of prominent world empires. It was entertaining to remember the empires I had forgotten, while learning from Chua's perspective. Great read.
• 
  Grace Schriedel

  This book was interesting and informative. Overall, it was an okay read. I thought it was very repetitive and I found myself skimming over large portions of it because I felt that I’d read the same thing before. Some of the sections were better than others and that’s only because I was only especially interested in some of the empires that were discussed. It served its purpose in educating me but that was about it.
• 
  Marlon Ausby

  Dope. A nice comparative history of the world's greatest empires. All of the usual suspects are here. Rome, Persia, Britain, and the Mongol. Some lesser known ones are explored too. Chua builds a good case for what makes an empire truly great and what dismantles these empires. She explores our own American empire with the same logic and has an interesting take on China. A must read if you are interested in history, international relations, assimilation, and tolerance.
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  Jorgon

  A fascinating comparative study of "hyperpowers" from Achaemenid Persia to USA today that isolates "relative tolerance" as a necessary precursor to their rise to power, and increasing intolerance and a lack of connecting vision as instrumental in their decline/downfall. As often, I would like to see an update to this, including the rise of terrorism and Obama and Trump adminsitrations.
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  Who

  Pop history with a progressive bias. Chua does add something to the debate and this is a timely book, but shouldn't be taken as anything more than a starting point. The ending chapter of contemporary analysis is basically a throwaway. It is also questionable whether the experience of conquering empires can even be transmuted as relevant to the trade-blocs of today
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  Mandy Galileo

  Very interesting look at not just great powers, or even superpowers, but states that were singularly dominant at their time. Makes some very interesting arguments about the necessary, even if not sufficient, requirements for states to achieve this status. Worth reading.
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  Sarah

  It was pretty good, interesting after reading got into it. Read for school, would have been better if the info wasn’t so hard to absorb. Skipped some parts, but a very good overview of hyper power empires.