In the Twilight of Empire: Rethinking America's Place in the World

17 September 2008

Faculty of Arts Public Lecture delivered while Professor Camilleri was a visitng scholar in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne

The Bush years have been eventful, if nothing else:
September 11, the ‘war on terror’, Afghanistan, Iraq,
Guantanamo, the Iran nuclear dispute, soaring oil prices, the
leftward shift in Latin American politics, the rise of China,
the rekindling of Soviet confidence. Are these discrete,
unconnected, transitory phenomena? Or, do they point to
certain underlying long-term trends? What has happened to
notions of unipolarity, empire, hegemony and unilateralism?
Do they still have intellectual or practical relevance? Or, have
they given way to deeper currents and a more complex social
and political reality? Professor Camilleri’s lecture addressed
these questions and their future implications.