An Interpretation of American Imperialism

Abstract

There are few words whose mere employment is capable of throwing American listeners into such paroxysms of righteous or offended indignation as the words “American imperialism.” This reaction is largely a reflection of the fact that “imperialism” is one of those words whose implicit domain of meaning is very large and even encompasses mutually contradictory elements as revealed by single user's notions of the world let alone different users' notions. In addition, the word conveys a strong connotation of ethically undesirable behavior to almost all users and readers.