There is an unfortunate tendency in much contemporary American historical scholarship to take a high moral stance in respect of the British Empire. Whether moralising about the past by applying the standards of the present is a sensible operation is a moot point, but much of this tradition is in any case transparently guilt displacement. The rapacious capitalist and environmental demands of the modern United States render it the "evil empire" par excellence. Moreover, the fundamental racism of its domestic polity, as represented in the alarming statistics of penal policy, the numbers of blacks on death row (at a time when all civilised countries have abandoned the death penalty), the highly selective (and generally white) incidence of Medicare, the disenfranchisement of blacks through gerrymandering as in the recent presidential "election", and the brutalities of the police as exposed in the Cincinnati riots, reveal that such scholars live in the largest glass house since the Crystal Palace. These two books constitute the antidote to such immature and distorted maunderings.
Рецензируемые книги сами по себе никакого отношения к Америке не имеют, кроме того, что написаны американскими авторами. То есть этот мудила (хрен ему в стык) высказывает свое видение Америки просто для того, чтобы дать запев, походя, как само собой очевидный факт.
И как после этого удивляться всяким доморощенным вербицким?
