From The Atlantic Online: Cullen Murphy, the author of Are We Rome?, talks about the American empire's parallels with the ancient republic and how we can learn from Caesar's mistakes.

As the Romans Did

Imagine a small agrarian republic that gradually grows into the world’s greatest military and cultural superpower. Over time, as public power is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of wealthy private citizens, that ruling elite falls increasingly out of touch with the world beyond its borders. Those borders, porous and steadily expanding, become ever more difficult to manage and defend. Faltering under the growing burden of policing them, the military is forced to recruit considerable mercenary support to handle conflicts that might arise, as well as those already under way. Eventually, losing its grip on power both internally and externally, the superpower enters a state of accelerating decline, ultimately fading into a shadow of its former glory.

Sound familiar? This describes the predicament the Roman Empire faced toward the end of the third century C.E.—one with obvious and disturbing parallels to the situation that confronts the United States today. Such resonances have brought the analogy between Rome and America to the minds of more than one commentator, including, most recently, the author and editor Cullen Murphy. In his new book Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America, Murphy takes a closer look at the oft-made comparison between the Roman Empire and the United States, leading the reader on an entertaining jaunt through precincts ancient and modern as he sets out to test the analogy’s validity and relevance.

 

Continue reading From The Atlantic Online: Cullen Murphy, the author of Are We Rome?, talks about the American empire's parallels with the ancient republic and how we can learn from Caesar's mistakes....

Cullen Murphy on Plum's MorningNoon&Night Show

Dan Honan interviews Cullen Murphy about his book Are We Rome? on the Nantucket Bookmark 2007 morning show.

Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy

Already one of the more talked-about literary events of this year, Cullen Murphy’s book bracingly takes on the question that Americans have been anxiously asking for generations, with increasing urgency of late: Will the American Empire suffer the fate of the Roman Empire? And what does that mean? Eschewing facile comparisons and obvious analogies, Murphy mines history and current events in original ways to create jarring equivalencies between Rome and America, yielding penetrating insights. Is the American Empire fated to decline like Rome? Probably so, at least in some sense. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. “Like Rome,” Murphy writes, “America is in some ways inextinguishable. What we can’t know is which characteristics will be extinguished and which won’t. But we do have a say in the outcome.” Murphy, who for twenty years was The Atlantic’s managing editor, takes us on a brisk and entertaining tour of both Rome in the third century BCE and America at the dawn of the 21st century. This book is both fun and important: America’s future course depends in part on whether we can learn from Rome’s mistakes.