The US is a military giant, better at devastating than pacifying countries. It is a political dwarf, unable to rule foreign lands, unable to control its own client states. It is only a back-soat driver of the global economy. It cannot steer it, but it prods many poorer foreign states toward an unproductive neo-liberalism. It is an ideological phantom, seducing with values of freedom, democracy and material plenty to the world, while bringing it only militarism and stagnation. This empire seems more impressive than it actually is because there is no single rival able to challenge its powers. But it has to contend with new forces – an entrenched nation-state system, the mobilizing powers of nationalism, a global economy which escapes its control, and global communication media. Incoherent Empire is a rigorous yet readable critique of the new American imperialism. Analysing the action in Afghanistan, the war against terrorism and the warnings to ‘rogue states’, Michael Mann argues that current American foreign policy exaggerates American power and fails to understand that the US possesses much less power than the major empires of history. He suggests this new imperialism will simply produce wars without end. In this lucid dissection of the military, economic, political and cultural resources of the US, Mann insists they can only generate an incoherent empire.