Sean T. Byrnes is a General Education Instructor at Western Governors University and an Adjunct Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland Global Campus. He is the author of Disunited Nations: U.S. Foreign Policy, Anti-Americanism, and the Rise of the New Right (2021). His work has appeared in publications including, Time, Dissent, The New Republic, Jacobin and Diplomatic History. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Emory University.

• Introduction1. Unleashing the “Empire of Liberty”: The colonization and decolonization of British North America2. “Afflictions of Longstanding”: Native Americans, Civilization, and the Decolonization of the United States3. Reordering the World: The Haitian Revolution, the Decolonization of Latin America, and the Empire of Trade4. Decolonization for Me but Not for You: The U.S., the War of 1898, and Establishing an Overseas Empire5. Determining Self Determination: the U.S. and Global Hierarchy before and after the Great War6. A Roosevelt Corollary for the World: The United States, World Order, and Decolonization After World War II7. “A structure of economic control”: The United States and an Independent Global South8. Hyperpower: U.S. Hegemony in the Age of Nation StatesConclusionBibliographyIndex

Associated with the late twentieth century, the decolonization of the modern world was symbolized by the birth of the United States in 1776 — a country that then had to grapple with the meaning of its own emancipation for its growing power in a world of other peoples. The great historian Sean Byrnes has written an epic and masterful survey of America’s struggle with empires — including its own — over two centuries. Whether and how empires end turn out to be defining American questions.