OPEN STACKS | #33 Future Imperfect: Mike Duncan & Alfred McCoy

Welcome back from our winter break, and welcome to 2018 with Open Stacks! This week on the show, empires are falling. Alfred McCoy talks In the Shadows of the American Century and Mike Duncan recalls Rome and his book The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic. 

Destruction, from Thomas Cole's The Course of Empire series (painted 1833-36). 

"The title of the series derives from a well-known eighteenth-century poem by the British philosopher Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753), entitled "Verses on the Prospect of Planning Arts and Learning in America" (1726). The poem alludes to five states of civilization and the implicit prophecy that America would prove to be the next great empire."

All empires in history have come to an end. The first guest of this episode, Alfred McCoy, speculates on the end of the United States' global influence and the rise of China as an imperial power. McCoy recently gave a fascinating interview about this decline over at The Intercept, which you can read here.

Mike Duncan hosts his own weekly podcast, Revolutions, in which he examines political revolutions. Open Stacks producer Kit Brennen is an avid listener:

Duncan's thoroughly researched podcast Revolutions takes a fine-toothed comb to some of history's most fascinating events, covering them with a level of detail once confined to history books. It's a history buff's dream, and surprisingly addicting even knowing how the story ends!

Her top pick for supplemental listening is "Necker and the Necklace" (listen to the episode here).  

The fall of any empire wouldn't be complete without a tune. Australian rocker James Reyne was still thinking of the fall of Rome centuries later in this 1987 classic: