controversial but interesting book

America: Imagine a World without Her 

1 To the moral credit of America, she ended slavery
the British and French did end slavery before America did, but the difficulty in America was that slavery was critical to the economy because of the Industrial Revolution.
2 America was the only country to fight a great war to end slavery.
3 EMERSON said: THIS IS NOT THE REVOLUTION OF THE OPPRESSED, BUT THE REPENTANCE OF THE TYRANT....MEANING: 300 000 northern soldiers died on the battlefield to secure the freedom of the slaves, that the slaves themselves were not in a position to secure for themselves.

why is america still important in the world

1 From the dawn of humanity, the CONQUEST ethic prevailed. eg colonialism - creation of wealth by taking land and wealth from someone else
2 America invented a rival ethic : WEALTH CREATION
3 IF THE WORLD DID NOT HAVE AMERICA RIGHT NOW, THE CONQUEST ETHIC WOULD RETURN WITH A VENGEANCE
4 The Russians and Chinese are using wealth creation - but they still believe in conquest...eg russia has just annexed crimea from ukraine and china has declared much of the south china sea as her territory.
5 all the commerce of the globalised world would be unsafe if not for the American navy...

so we still need america now as much as in the past