Eliot A. Cohen

Eulogies delivered at the memorial service for Samuel P. Huntington, Memorial Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 22, 2009.

Whether or not the United States today should be called an empire is a semantic game. The important point is that it resembles previous empires enough to make the search for lessons of history worthwhile. Overwhelming dominance has always invited hostility. U.S. leaders thus must learn the arts of imperial management and diplomacy, exercising power with a bland smile rather than boastful words.