After the Soviet Union imploded, the United States was described first as the globe’s “lone superpower,” then as “reluctant sheriff,” and, in the wake of 9/11, as a “New Rome.” In this important best-seller, Chalmers Johnson explores the new militarism that is transforming America and compelling its people to pick up the burden of empire.

Recalling the classic warnings against militarism—from George Washington’s farewell address to Dwight Eisenhower’s denunciation of the military-industrial complex—Johnson turns to the present, showing that this militarism is already putting an end to the age of globalization, bankrupting the United Sates, and creating conditions for a new century of virulent blowback. The Sorrows of Empire suggests that the former American republic has already crossed its Rubicon—with the Pentagon in the lead.

CHALMERS JOHNSON, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, is the author of the bestselling Blowback Trilogy and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times, London Review of Books, and Nation. He appeared in the 2005 prize-winning documentary film Why We Fight.