We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and the Rise of the American Colossus

On Thursday, October 5th, the America in the World Consortium, the Clements Center for National Security, and the Strauss Center for International Security and Law hosted Sean A. Mirski, lawyer and U.S. foreign policy scholar, for a book talk on his recent release We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and the American Colossus. 

Sean Mirski focuses his practice on appellate and international matters. He has assisted clients on issues such as the law of armed conflict, foreign sovereign immunity, the act of state doctrine, the law of the sea, the Helms-Burton Act, and other subjects of public international and foreign relations law. Mr. Mirski has also worked on appeals and dispositive motions relating to areas like products liability, the False Claims Act, attorney’s fees, and the Fourth Amendment.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Mirski served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr., of the United States Supreme Court and to the Honorable Brett M. Kavanaugh of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. He also served as Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the US Department of Defense.

Book Description:

In We May Dominate the World, Sean A. Mirski tells the riveting story of how the United States became a regional hegemon in the century following the Civil War. By turns reluctant and ruthless, Americans squeezed their European rivals out of the hemisphere while landing forces on their neighbors’ soil with dizzying frequency. Mirski reveals the surprising reasons behind this muscular foreign policy in a narrative full of twists, colorful characters, and original accounts of the palace coups and bloody interventions that turned the fledgling republic into a global superpower.

Today, as China makes its own run at regional hegemony and nations like Russia and Iran grow more menacing, Mirski’s fresh look at the rise of the American colossus offers indispensable lessons for how to meet the challenges of our own century.

For more information about this event, contact Drayton Cullen at [email protected].