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

What an interesting perspective

Amy Chua makes history so interesting and relevant and thoroughly believable. I wish that everyone in politics would read it. I loved it. I found maps of historical eras, and could then see visually the size and scope of the different empires she talked about. She continually reinforces her thesis that empires rise because of their all inclusiveness and tolerance, and fail because they become intolerant. I concluded that the U.S. is now leaning strongly towards intolerance and it scares me.

From ross a nine year old boy

Well, i only have a sample, but the book is awsome.

Tolerance is Key for Dominance

It is another wonderful book written by Amy Chua. The central thesis of the book is that a country has to be tolerant in order to reach global dominance. However, tolerance is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for becoming a dominant empire. The other conditions could include geography, large population, natural resources, leadership, etc.

I completely agree with the fact that in order to be dominant a country has to be tolerant. What separates a dominant country from others is its access to top talent in technology, science, military, trade, business, and other areas of human activities. Historically, none of the dominant countries had a monopoly on the top human capital. In order to become dominant, societies had to attract and motivate the world's best and brightest people. These people would contribute to their societies to the maximum of their abilities only if they felt that the societies valued them despite the fact that these people had customs and traditions different from those of the core ethnic groups.

Fear was another alternative for motivating people. But as history demonstrated time and again, it could motivate people only for relatively short periods of time. As soon as people had a chance to escape from this "motivator" they would do it by seceding from the empires, by defecting from them, or simply by intentionally failing to reach their full potential in order not to attract attention of the authorities.

Tolerance is important not only for building dominant empires but also for building great companies, sports teams, and other organizations. Just take a look at some of the "dominant" teams in soccer, the most popular global sport. In addition to players representing host countries, the best teams include players from all continents but Antarctica. For example, AC Milan, Manchester United and Barcelona were recent winners of the UEFA (European) Champions League, one of the most prestigious competitions in the soccer world. These teams had 8, 12 and 8 foreign players, respectively, among 18 players selected for the final games. These players would not have joined the teams unless they felt that they would be accepted there.

The same is true for the business world. Most globally "dominant" companies often have at least several foreign managers, who have skills complementary to those of managers from the host countries. For example, Intel Corporation, a dominant producer of microprocessors, has senior managers who came not only from the United States, but also from India, Israel and the United Kingdom.

insightful

overall thought the book was very informative. But I didn't like how the author shrubbed the Ottoman empire as not being an hyperpower and payed no real attention to it.

informative

was a great book, but I'm disjointed that she failed to mention the Ottoman empire, who were just as important and were even greater then the empires she discusses.

Are we doomed to repeat it?

Thank you, thank you. This book gives us a brief but important history of the successes and the failures of those who came before us. The US would do well to examine the history of 'hyper' powers of the past and perhaps learn something. We, too, have benefited from a free, open, and tolerant society that incorporated the 'best and the brightest' from all over the globe -- it has been successful for us in the past yet we stand at the brink of closing ourselves off from the very source of that success. A great read.

Tolerance is NOT the answer

Tolerance along with political correctness will be the death of us all. Throughout history and life, those who are tolerant are tread upon in the long run.

Balanced Tolerance: A Must for Benevolent World Supremacy

Amy Chua controversially states that tolerance is a necessary condition for world dominance or hyperpower. Chua adds that intolerance, xenophobia, and calls for racial, religious, or ethnic purity are most often associated with the decline of hyperpowers. Chua paradoxically notes that tolerance can perversely lead to intolerance (pp. xxi, xxiv). Chua defines a nation or empire as a hyperpower if it meets three criteria: 1. Its power clearly surpasses that of any known contemporary rival 2. It is not economically or militarily inferior to any other power 3. It is not a mere local or regional government because of the immensity of the territory and population it controls (p. xxii). Until the rise of the Dutch Empire in the 17th century C.E., there was a very direct correlation between military power and economic power (p. 322). The more a nation or empire conquered, the wealthier it got, whether by taxing, looting, annexing, or exacting tributes. Think for example about the Persian Empire, Rome¿s High Empire, or China¿s Tang Dynasty. With the advent of the maritime empire of the Dutchmen, the levers of global wealth have shifted from land to sea, from conquest to commerce, and from autocracy to democracy. Control over trade backed by military force has become far more efficient than conquest and rule (pp. 154-58, 163-65, 321-25). Chua demonstrates with much conviction that to achieve not regional but world dominance, a society has to attract, command the loyalty, and motivate the world¿s most valuable human capital (pp. 4-5, 15-16, 40-44, 63-64, 74-81, 95-97, 117-18, 147-58, 169-76, 192-209, 221, 242-66, 293). In past hyperpowers, tolerance was not about a matter of principle, equality, human rights, or mutual respect (pp. xxiii, 11, 17, 41, 167, 171, 241). Tolerance was a matter of strategy and expediency (pp. 11, 90, 173, 213-14, 249-50, 289-91, 324, 342). It was perceived as advantageous to let very different kinds of people live, work, and prosper together. Think for instance about medieval Spain (pp. xxxii-xxxiii, 129-33). Furthermore, tolerance could be applied selectively. For example, the British Empire tolerated Protestant Scots because they were perceived as useful for empire-building purposes. In contrast, Irish Catholics did not fit into that mold (pp. xxiv, 209-13). What matters in that non-human-rights context, is relative tolerance compared to other contemporary options (pp. xxiii-xxiv, 34, 48-52, 167, 198, 234-35, 255). Hyperpowers almost always fragment and disintegrate when their core group turns intolerant (pp. 19-23, 52-58, 81-87, 121-25, 136-38, 166-67, 176-78, 223-30). Chua calls the alignment of interests of subjects with those of the hyperpower the ¿glue¿ (pp. 322, 326-33). For example, ancient Rome learned from ancient Greece that bigotry and ethnic division often resulted in resentment that led to war (p. 33). For a long time, Rome was good at assimilating subjugated people through the inducements of citizenship, participation in the empire, and the appeal of Roman culture (pp. 48, 52, 58). The Roman Empire in the West finally fell in 476 C.E. due to a variety of reasons, including its tolerance of non-assimilated ¿barbarians¿ within its borders who began agitating for independence and, more importantly, intensifying religious persecution and ethnic bigotry (pp. 22, 52-53, 57). The U.S. is the first nation of immigrants to become a hyperpower (pp. 234, 324-26). The U.S.¿s technological and economic dominance results directly from its superior ability to attract talented and enterprising individuals from around the world (pp. xxv-xxvi, 242-46, 261-66, 335). Furthermore, the U.S. is the first mature universal-suffrage democracy to do so (pp. xxvi, 326). Domestically, the U.S. has been uniquely successful at creating an ethnically and religiously neutral polity. The U.S.¿s real challenge lies overseas. There is little glue that sustains the relation

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A reviewer

The core of Ms. Chua's book is that tolerance is a key requirement for being a hyperpower 'along with there not being competing nations of equal power'. I disagree. Rather, I have found from my many years living/working in/visiting about eighty countries that success is in very large part due to how rational is a national culture. Some comments: 1. Some extreme examples of rational behavior are the extreme successes of Hong Kong and Singapore, states (special admin. region in the case of Hong Kong) with no natural resources other than rock 'in Hong Kong' and swamps (in Singapore) for their highly rational people, rather just their highly rational behavior. 2. Being tolerant of that which is not threatening to a nation is for the most part being highly rational. Being tolerant of that which will destroy a nation is not rational. Therefore, for most the most part highly successful nations will be highly tolerant. 3. I question the assertion that the Netherlands was a hyperpower. Yes, it was a significant economic power for some time, but during all of that time there was France nearby that was far more powerful and often threatened the Netherlands. 4. The end for hyperpowers has not been due to intolerance, rather due to losing their values (Roman Empire in particular), dynastical disputes between the many sons of the many wives of the ruler (Mongols in particular), exhaustion (the British), and replacement by a like hyperpower (the British replaced by the USA, and supplementing the power of the USA). 5. Two of the major sources of power of the British and the USA have been both the strong sense of noblesse oblige of these two nations and the knowledge that their interests are both more global that any other nations and therefore threatened 'by pirates, terrorists, other nations' such that they must be far more involved in resolving international problems around the world. The lesser nations 'think of Bolivia, Belgium, Bulgaria, and Botswana' are happy both to let the UK/USA resolve international problems AND hate the UK/USA because they are doing too much, too little, and/or doing it too soon or too late, while these ungrateful nations are happy to trade with all sides (think of how most nations view Iran, as a problem for the USA and UK to solve while they make money selling to them). These were 'sources of power' because they forced the UK and USA to go 'out there' and to confront the enemies, rather than to stay in their ports letting someone else police the world (a someone else that did not exist).

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