Mapping America

Till the other day it was just a suspicion. But as the B-2s have crisscrossed the skies, as the armoured tanks have rolled through the deser...

Till the other day it was just a suspicion. But as the B-2s have crisscrossed the skies, as the armoured tanks have rolled through the deserts, as the country rallies its best and brightest for intensive engagement in territories beyond its two moats the Pacific and Atlantic, speculation has ossified into conviction. Angry conviction. This special issue of Granta begins with the premise that the US is the world8217;s newest, greatest and only empire. Events of recent months, says editor Ian Jack, have confirmed one thing: 8220;America, or at least its present government, is determined to rearrange the world to its own satisfaction, come hell or high water.8221;

The rest of the world 8212; positioned in such neat binary opposition to the hyperpower in the title 8212; has been vocal and emphatic in voicing a multitude of responses to the emerging world order. But what do Americans think of the world beyond their borders? Listen on, but given that Granta has commissioned articles and representations from writers, artists and photographers, it is perhaps inevitable that a coating of sickened introspection sticks to these pages.

A sulfurous exchange between a thinking, responsible minority and a righteous, smug majority is conveyed in a transcript of Chris Hedges8217; commencement address at an Illinois college. Hedges, a correspondent with The New York Times, begins: 8220;I want to speak to you today about war and empire.8221; War, he continues, has become a spectator sport and empire is little else but an euphemism for membership in a rogues8217; gallery of occupation forces. Interruptions from assembled students start with little epithets, shouts of 8220;No!8221; But soon the discontent bubbles over and they shout, 8220;God bless America!8221; The president of the college hushes his wards: 8220;If you wish to protest the speaker8217;s remarks, I ask that you do it in silence.8221; Later he apologises for inviting Hedges for such a solemn occasion.

Other contributions are more quiet, contemplative. Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, evokes the binary opposition in reactions to the evolution of American empire. It is fashionable, he finds, to talk of empire in London and Washington these days. The British empire, goes the new thinking, was not a bad thing, really, and a well-administered American one could be all for the good. Curious, is it not, he asks, that this consensus breaks down totally in former British colonies.

J. Robert Lennon wonders how to assess America8217;s place in the world. Is the world one big, dysfunctional family, he wonders, with America playing the father. Take that to its logical conclusion, and the analogy breaks down. So, is the world in fact like a zoo, with America the zookeeper? No, that doesn8217;t work either. Is the world, then, an orchestra, or an anthill, a pie, a planet?

For cartoonist Martin Rowson, answers are best hazarded through cartography. Plain old mapmaking will not suffice 8212; those simple two-dimensional projections based on latitudes and longitudes may be true to geography but they do not capture the imperial reality. Manifest destiny, obesity, the American dream, political cohesion, enterprise and opportunism have to be measured 8212; and then put through an imaginative differential calculus to determine new coefficients. It8217;s humour at its darkest.

These writings then turn out to be less about the rest of the world, even though Rattawut Lapcharoensap attempts to recreate a Thai island measuring its seasons by visitations of 8220;farangs8221;. The horizons may be wide, the vantage points scattered, but the gaze is skillfully turned inwards. It8217;s in the end an inquiry into how Americans see others seeing them.