Why America Is Not a New Rome
Repetition by pundits and literary commentators in the mass media has entrenched in people's minds the notion that America is a new Rome. Smil's book, tightly argued and rigorously documented, is a concise and persuasive scientific demolition of the Rome-America parallel, totally deflating the usefulness of the analogy as a tool of historical analysis. Why America is Not a New Rome is a much-needed corrective.(Paul Demeny, Distinguished Scholar, Population Council, New York)[T]his book is both a polemic and a work of scholarship.(Daniel Headrick,Technology and Culture)Smil (Univ. of Manitoba, Canada) has written an entertaining response to authors who have compared the US to the Roman Empire...(S. Prisco III,CHOICE)