Alfred W. McCoy

"Nor did the French colonists have any illusions about how they were financing Indochina's development. When the government announced plans to build a railway up the Red River valley into China's Yunnan Province, a spokesman for the business community explained one of its primary goals: "It is particularly interesting, at the moment one is about to vote funds for the construction of a railway to Yunnan, to search for ways to augment the commerce between the province and our territory.... The regulation of commerce in opium and salt in Yunnan might be adjusted in such a way as to facilitate commerce and increase the tonnage carried on our railway.""

"[F]amily and school taught me that criticism was not only a right but a responsibility of citizenship."

"It has taken many years of education and much of my life to gain some insight into the geopolitical dynamics that propelled the United States to global hegemony and are... condemning it to decline."

"This... US imperium was Athenian in its ability to forge coalitions..; Roman in its reliance on... military bases across... the... world; and British in... aspiration to merge culture, commerce, and alliances into a comprehensive system... [A]... quest for ... lent it a distinctive dimension."

"Washington... faces an adversary with... the means and determination to mount a sustained challenge... Even if Beijing falters, thanks to a decline in economic growth or... surge in popular discontent, there are a dozen rising powers working to build a multipolar world beyond the grasp of any global hegemon."

"Having seized... and Imperial Japan in 1945, the United States would rely for... seventy years on... thickening military power to contain... China and Russia... enjoying... unimpeded access to trade and resources of five continents... building a global dominion of... wealth and power. The current... conflict between Beijing and Washington is... the latest round in a centuries long struggle for control... Spain versus the Ottomans, Britain versus Russia... the United State versus the Third Reich and then the Soviet Union."

"[T]he word empire is a fraught one... [E]mpire is... a form of global governance in which a dominant power exercises control over the destiny of others, either... direct... rule (colonies) or indirect influence (military, economic and cultural). Empire, bloc, commonwealth, or world order... all express... power that has persisted for... four thousand years... [E]mpires are an undeniable, unchanging fact of human history. After counting seventy... Niall Fergusson noted.., "To those who would still insist on American 'exceptionalism', the historian of empires can only retort: as exceptional as all other sixty-nine empires.""