Why American Hegemony Differs From Britain’s Empire

Abstract

History, we are told, is discourse. There is no understanding it unless we understand the language in which people think, talk and take decisions. Among the historians tempted by what is called ‘the linguistic turn’ there are even some who argue that it is the ideas and concepts expressed in the words characteristic of the period that explain what happened and why. We are saturated with what the philosopher Thomas Hobbes called ‘insignificant speech’ (speech which means nothing) and its sub varieties ‘euphemism’ and George Orwell’s ‘newspeak’-namely speech deliberately intended to mislead by misdescription. But unless the facts themselves change, no amount of changing names/words changes them.