{"id":50717,"date":"2026-01-05T12:01:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=50717"},"modified":"2026-01-05T12:01:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:01:47","slug":"tom-stevenson-someone-elses-empire-british-illusions-and-american-hegemony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=50717","title":{"rendered":"Tom Stevenson, \u201eSomeone Else&#8217;s Empire: British Illusions and American Hegemony\u201c"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The destructive delusions of \u2018Global Britain\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>SOMEONE ELSE\u2019S EMPIRE<\/em> dispels the myth of a \u2018Global Britain\u2019 that punches above its weight in the world. The reality, argues Tom Stevenson, is that Britain lacks even the barest outline of an independent foreign policy. The impetus for so many policy decisions, from Iraq to AUKUS, comes from a supine desire to maintain lieutenant rank in the Washington hierarchy, whatever the consequences.<br><br>Nostalgia for global influence has produced a compulsive Atlanticism and a reflexive resort to military actions that the UK is near incapable of actually performing. The net effect of Brexit has been an increase in vassalage. Yet for what must ultimately be psychological reasons, British leaders and national security clerks have tended to dislike seeing Britain framed by American power. <em>Someone Else\u2019s Empire<\/em> looks at the infrastructure of a US world order re-energised by Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, and fits the UK into the picture without the usual euphemisms. It is one thing to station military forces around the world to maintain your empire, but quite another to do so for someone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Reviews<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A fascinating read about Britain\u2019s dreams of empire and embarrassing deference to Washington<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This lacerating book lays bare everything from the sanguinary politics of the British defence establishment to the management of venal political proxies in the Middle East.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Laleh Khalili, author of Sinews of War and Trade<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Stevenson writes vividly of the United States\u2019 relentless pursuit of international predominance and Britain\u2019s role as its loyal adjutant. An insight-laden exploration.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Rajan Menon, author of The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Welcome &#8230; evocative &#8230; Reproduces a style of reportage, highly literary yet historically informed, that harkens back to a bygone era of journalism<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>John-Baptiste Oduor,&nbsp; Jacobin<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>One of the London Review of Books\u2019 great essayists &#8230; compelling.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Richard G. Whitman,&nbsp; International Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>272 pages \/ November 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-link is-provider-ugradnja wp-block-embed-ugradnja\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/products\/2978-someone-else-s-empire\">Someone Else&#039;s Empire<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knjige","category-novosti"],"acf":{"facebook_opis":""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Stevenson.webp?fit=358%2C650&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50719,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50717\/revisions\/50719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}