Empires of Trust How Rome Built--and America Is Building--a New World Hardback - 2008

Media reviews

"So much nonsense has been written and talked in recent years about America as the New Rome--a Republic on the verge of imperial corruption, or an empire on the verge of dissolution--that it is a breath of fresh air to read Thomas Madden. His scholarly credentials as a pre-modern historian are impeccable. Yet he also has the ability, too rare in the academy, so write with bracing clarity and to address our present preoccupations. No, we aren't Rome. But understanding why not, as Madden demonstrates, is an essential precondition for appreciating what we really are.'
--Niall Ferguson, Harvard University, author of Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

'Most comparisons of Rome and the United States are meditations on imperial decline. Madden, on the other hand, asks us to contemplate the invisible and often unconscious dynamic that transforms some nations into empires, often against their will. This is a big idea, presented in a prose style that defies the jargon-choked language of so much scholarship today. This is a break-out book.'
--Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers, His Excellency: George Washington, and most recently American Creation

'A much needed reassessment of the now hackneyed view that we are simply grasping Romans--and thus are doomed to suffer the same imperial decadence. Thomas Madden shows us a different Rome that established security and prosperity--and trust--winning the hearts and minds of millions in the Mediterranean world. Likewise the United States has become powerful abroad due to its marriage of force with credibility and the rule of law. An original thesis, lucidly argued-and timely in an uncanny fashion.'
-- Victor Davis Hanson, author Carnage and Culture and A War Like No Other: How the Athenians Fought the Spartans