American Power in the 21st Century. Edited by David Held and Mathias Koenig-Archibugi. Cambridge, UK, and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2004. 299p. $64.95 cloth, $26.95 paper.

American primacy is destined to be one of the defining features of international politics for years to come. David Held and Mathias Koenig-Archibugi have assembled essays on the topic by a high-powered stable of scholars. Michael Cox, one of the most prolific and penetrating analysts of American power today, kicks off the volume with a learned tour d'horizon of scholarly debates on whether empire is a useful concept to apply today, whether the United States is one, and whether its primacy will endure. Michael Mann and Mary Kaldor present skeptical views on the latter issue. Mann briskly makes his case that as strong as it is militarily, the United States lacks the other wellsprings of power any self-respecting empire needs. And Kaldor goes on to disparage the real utility of the one kind of power that everyone in the book agrees the United States possesses in abundance. High-technology military force, she argues, “rarely confers a decisive advantage in conflicts between armed opponents” (p. 187).