James Morone
El Casino Macabre
Many Americans celebrate national holidays by mobbing megastores at dawn, pushing aside the slow-footed and grabbing the $39 computers, while TV crews film the spectacle and warn the indolent that they’d ‘better get down here before it’s all gone’. The image of shoppers sending one another to hospital catches the spirit of these two books. Both address the question of the moment: has the American republic turned into an empire? And if so, should we cheer, lament or simply get on with imperial business?http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/james-morone/el-casino-macabre