Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly


Like ancient Rome, America is saddled with an empire that is fatally undermining its republican government, argues Johnson (The Sorrows of Empire), in this bleak jeremiad. He surveys the trappings of empire: the brutal war of choice in Iraq and other foreign interventions going back decades; the militarization of space; the hundreds of overseas U.S. military bases full of "swaggering soldiers who brawl and sometimes rape." At home, the growth of an "imperial presidency," with the CIA as its "private army," has culminated in the Bush administration's resort to warrantless wiretaps, torture, a "gulag" of secret CIA prisons and an unconstitutional arrogation of "dictatorial" powers, while a corrupt Congress bows like the Roman Senate to Caesar. Retribution looms, the author warns, as the American economy, dependent on a bloated military-industrial complex and foreign borrowing, staggers toward bankruptcy, maybe a military coup. Johnson's is a biting, often effective indictment of some ugly and troubling features of America's foreign policy and domestic politics. But his doom-laden trope of empire ("the capacity for things to get worse is limitless.... the American republic may be coming to its end") seems overstated. With Bush a lame duck, not a Caesar, and his military adventures repudiated by the electorate, the Republic seems more robust than Johnson allows. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist


The third book in a series begun with Blowback (2000), which predicted harsh comeuppance for the post-cold war American "global empire," and The Sorrows of Empire (2004), which continued Johnson's thesis with a lambasting of American militarism pre- and post-September 11, this book continues the author's broad condemnation of American foreign policy by warning of imminent constitutional and economic collapse. In a chapter analyzing "comparative imperial pathologies," Johnson reminds readers of Hannah Arendt's point that successful imperialism requires that democratic systems give way to tyranny and asserts that the U.S. must choose between giving up its empire of military bases (as did Britain after World War II) or retaining the bases at the expense of its democracy (as did Rome). Johnson also predicts dire consequences should the U.S. continue to militarize low Earth orbits in pursuit of security. To some extent a timely response to recent arguments in favor of American empire, such as those of Niall Ferguson in Colossus, this account also reiterates Johnson's perennial concerns about overseas military bases, the CIA, and the artifice of a defense-fueled economy. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable editi
Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic



5.0 out of 5 starsGood introduction to American empire building after World War II and the negative impact on populations around the world
ByWinterTop Contributor: Photographyon December 20, 2017
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Few Americans are aware that 9-11 was the direct result of the Saudi royal family that financed the hijackers, and the US government whose military has built more than 700 military bases around the world. Imagine having a Chinese military base or a Russian or Pakistani military base in Virginia or Michigan or Arizona and you can understand why the people living in the countries occupied by our military are not happy with the United States. Add in our support for dictators and overthrow of democratic governments in Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, and elsewhere and this increases the justified hatred of Americans. We are the recipients of large numbers of refugees who we have forced to flee their bombed out cities having killed their families and their friends and destroyed their homes and hospitals and water treatement plants.

Chalmers Johnson was one of the first Americans to recognize that our actions will have repercussions and he coined the term "blowback". This book is a good introduction to his thinking and will help broaden the perspective and add to the understanding of those with an open mind. I appreciate that having an open mind is not at all common in the United States where bigotry rules the day. It is far easier for the elites to control a population when they are able to set one faction against another.
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4.0 out of 5 starsThe high moral cost of empire
ByJohn Cosmideson October 15, 2013
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After WW II the U.S. chose the path of empire. Empires extend and maintain their influence by building military bases all over the world in other countries. This is why the U.S. currently spends more on its military than all other countries combined. We can fund this massive project because the dollar is the world's reserve currency, meaning that, because global commodities such as oil and gold must be purchased with dollars, countries must maintain dollars on hand. This dramatically increases the supply of dollars in circulation, which in turn reduces the relative effects of our deficit spending on our military (i.e., those newly-minted dollars are a smaller percentage of the global money supply than they would be if others didn't stockpile the dollar, and therefore don't create as much inflation).

However, countries, particularly those in the Middle East, are growing frustrated with America's military presence and are lashing back at us with "terrorist" attacks. Others are threatening to move off the dollar as the reserve currency. Those threats to our empire require the U.S. to respond, and that response has lead to shameful human rights abuses that Johnson documents in great detail in this book, as well as frightening new military advances in space that may eventually enable the U.S. pull its military bases out of others' countries but still maintain its dominance. The U.S. also uses these "terrorist" threats to justify greater restrictions on liberty at home, so that, in Johnson's estimation, the U.S. has ceased being a republic, as did Rome.

Finally, Johnson shows that our growing national debt makes our military dominance unsustainable and that the U.S. is heading in one of two directions: a dictatorship that will keep its citizens under control as the empire reduces public services in order to maintain its military might. Or, a relinquishing of its empire and a return to democracy, as did Great Britain.
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5.0 out of 5 starsWhat a read. Thank you Mr. Johnson. ...
ByRobert G. San Socieon June 30, 2017
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What a read. Thank you Mr. Johnson. Pull back the curtains and understand why things are the way they are.......
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5.0 out of 5 starsThe third in a powerful series of astute analysis
ByC. Collinson December 10, 2008
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I read all three of Chalmers Johnson's trilogy; Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis. I definitely see a trend and movement in the three books in that Blowback uses multiple examples from Chalmer's many years of work in Asia whereas in Nemesis, the makes his boldest statement and warning about the direction of the American Empire.

Nemesis covers a range of topics to support Johnson's primary thesis and warning.

First, he points out how militarism may contribute to the breakdown of constitutional government. Johnson supplies many examples but history could certainly provide more including the downfall of Napoleon III.

Second, Johnson compares the American Empire with the Roman and British Empires. Actually Johnson's thesis is one of hope and optimism for he relates how Rome was unable to turn from military imperialistic goals and restore a republic yet Great Britian was able to gradually lose an empire but strengthen its democratic and republican political structures. The American people however are not ready for this message from Johnson and therefore it must fall to a few insightful folks to steer America to a stronger committment to democratic republic principles as a series of economic crisis begin to remind Americans that we are not invulnerable.

Third, Johnson offers us a biting criticism of the CIA with its lack of performance and accountability.

Fourth, the expansive network of military bases and the wide claims of our military industrial complex are explored.

Fifth, Johnson offers the most original analysis and critique of the Star Wars program that I have seen in print. This chapter is worth the price of the book.

Finally, Johnson offers hope in that an empowered citizen body in the US must constantly monitor the processes and activities of our government. The issues are tremendously complex and thankfully we have political scientists such as Chalmers Johnson who are willing to do the hard work of putting all the puzzle pieces together to provide us a clear picture of a disturbing future unless we strengthen America's democratic republic roots and decrease the power of an imperial presidency and a government run in secret.
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5.0 out of 5 starsEntertaining and Enlightening History
ByAmazon Customeron February 28, 2015
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Chalmers is brilliant at illuminating present day challenges in the light of past history. Here he does this country a huge service by enlightening us to the present danger of
the imperial presidency that started with Nixon and has carried through with every Republican president since than with the inevitable disaster of George W.Bush. Nemesis is a goddess who brings disaster to the arrogant and the cruel.Chalmers Johnson by drawing the parallels between the hubris of the Roman Empire and the arrogance of American foreign policy warns us about our inevitable rendezvous with her.
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5.0 out of 5 starsNemesis is an intelligent, comprehensive account of America's post WWII pursuit of ...
BySnowgooseon July 1, 2014
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Nemesis is an intelligent, comprehensive account of America's post WWII pursuit of empire, with all the problems, perhaps fatal ones, that that entails for our democracy. Chalmers Johnson spells out, chapter and verse, just why President Eisenhower so poignantly warned us against the military-industrial complex and the price we are paying for having ignored his warning. This is must reading for any citizen who thinks and cares deeply about the future of the American republic.
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5.0 out of 5 starsThe Empire of the United States of America
ByJosh Meieron September 4, 2010
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In a day and age of mindless reality TV shows and copious books written for the pop culture mind, Chalmers Johnson deftly and thoroughly defines, both from a modern perspective and historically as well, why America can keep its empire and lose its democracy or lose its empire and keep its democracy. It, however, cannot do both simultaneously. You will never read or listen to another news report in the same way after reading this book. In my opinion, we may have elected a new and very capable president, but a larger corporate machine actually rules the earth.
Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (American Empire Project)
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4.0 out of 5 stars"my country is launched on a dangerous path that it must abandon or else face the consequences"
ByK. M.on March 2, 2007
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So declares Chalmers Johnson in NEMESIS, the completing volume of a trilogy that includes BLOWBACK and THE SORROWS OF EMPIRE. Nemesis is also the name of a Greek goddess who is "the spirit of retribution, a corrective to the greed and stupidity that sometimes governs relations among people." She stands for the "' righteous anger'" to which Americans must awake if our Republic is to survive rather than be as "doomed as the Roman Republic was after the Ides of March that spring of 44 BC."

In seven relentless chapters --
1. "Militarism and the Breakdown of Constitutional Government
2. Comparative Imperial Pathologies: Rome, Britain, and American
3. Central Intelligence Agency: The President's Private Army
4. US Military Bases in Other People's Countries
5. How American Imperialism Actually Works: The SOFA in Japan
6. Space: The Ultimate Imperialist Project
7. The Crisis of the American Republic
-- Johnson presents fact after fact to support his unswerving thesis that the United States government is empire building in an aggressive, Ugly American way; and that we Americans cannot sustain both a viable republic at home and a world hegemony. The two are incompatible.

Chapter 2's discussion alone is worth the price of NEMESIS. Johnson recounts the Roman slide from republic to tyranny which America is currently following. Then he contends that Britain's divestiture of its empire preserved its domestic democratic institutions, and states that for the USA, "the choice is between the Roman and British precedents."

Then the focus turns to topics that drive home the USA's far-flung web of control and the immense power it wields globally. The incredible hubris of the US as it occupies Iraq, as it establishes secret prison bases internationally, as it reneges on agreements and interferes in other sovereign nations' elections, as it spends hundreds of billions of dollars on defense systems and occupations that don't demonstrably defend the homeland, as it blots out additional rights at home in the name of security, is copiously documented. Generally, the overwhelming criticism of US government actions is persuasive due to the unfailing use of sources: the Notes at the end of NEMESIS cover fifty pages. However, the discerning reader will at times perceive that Johnson has stacked the deck. The author's preoccupation with indicting American actions sometimes glosses the fact that the US isn't the only nation to play fast and loose in the game of international posturing and positioning. Still, any reader who possesses a grounded grasp of history and understands that other countries in the world also act -- sometimes precipitously and with their own thirst for empire-building -- will recognize Johnson's bias and compensate for it.

NEMESIS is an important, well-written, well-substantiated contribution to the growing library of books warning that America's political and military policies are sliding us closer to imperialistic totalitarianism, a very real threat. This third volume of the Blowback Trilogy is highly recommended reading for all Americans who feel "righteous anger" and truly want to prevent such a fate.
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