Hobsbawm e le Prospettive di un “Impero Americano”
22/10/2005Lo storico inglese Eric Hobsbawm, durante una conferenza alla Lowell Lecture Hall, ha avanzato l’ipotesi che la “iperestensione”, di natura “imperiale”, degli Stati Uniti possa condurre Washington al “fallimento”.
Concepts of imperialism and empire are “in flat contradiction to the traditional political self-definition of the U.S.A.,” Hobsbawm said, however, “there is no precedent for the global supremacy that the U.S. government is trying to establish.”
The American empire “will almost certainly fail,” Hobsbawm said. “Will the U.S. learn the lesson [of the British Empire] or will it try to maintain an eroding global position by relying on a failing political force and a military force which is insufficient for the present purposes which the current American government claims it is designed?”
Hobsbawm, tuttavia, ha precisato di essere “uno storico, non un profeta”, rifiutando di precisare cosa egli preveda per il prossimo futuro degli USA.
