Our United States legacy: lessons learned from the British Empire.

With our current positions both in Singapore and the United States, my husband, Edward Holmes, and I have had the opportunity to work on projects spanning the globe, from the US to Europe to the Middle East. This has given us a valuable perspective on the US from multiple international points of view. We now have a much better ability to assess where the United States stands today and the trajectory we appear to be on. So the topic I have chosen for today, the 122nd anniversary of the AAP, is a look forward to what our legacy might be and how we might influence that legacy. Twelve years ago I gave the ASCI Presidential Address on the plight of academic medicine (1), and I note that many of the issues that I discussed then are the same ones that exist now. Hopefully I will have better luck this time, and 12 years from now there will be some real change. I’ll go ahead and give you the punch line first — although we are still the greatest country in the world, certainly with respect to science, technology, and innovation, unless we wake up and aggressively evolve, we are likely to find that “The American Way” will no longer be a dream that many aspire to. Our status as a superpower (in fact, the only superpower at present) makes us a virtual empire. Although I hope that our US empire status persists, if we look back at history, all empires eventually disappear, and when they do, they leave a legacy, either good or bad, in their place. Our legacy is still evolving, and in the end I hope that it is one that we will be proud of. The members of the AAP and ASCI, as leaders in this country, have the ability to influence the US legacy. There is no better time than now to start doing just that. History can teach us important lessons, and I have chosen to talk about lessons that we Americans can learn from the rise and fall of the British Empire, and from the legacy that empire has left us. The history of the British Empire, or of any empire for that matter, illustrates an important lesson for the US — that one’s dominance in the world can be relatively fleeting in the grand scheme of things. I’d like to give a short review of the history of the British Empire to provide a feel for the active time frame of a modern empire, and then review some of the legacies that empire has left us. Then I’d like to turn and look at some of the possible legacies that we, as citizens of the United States, might leave to future generations. The British Empire was the largest physical empire in history, and for over 2 centuries the foremost global power. The emphasis that England put on discovery, in the form of maritime exploration, formed the roots of the British Empire in the 15th century. For the US, discovery in the form of science and technology forms the basis of much of our dominance today. Britain’s discoveries led to the acquisition of physical property, while US discoveries result in the acquisition intellectual property, the bedrock of today’s US empire. England began accumulating physical and economic territory in the early 1500s. By the 1700s she was already reaching across the globe, predominately by getting the upper hand on Spain, France, and the Netherlands. As one of the 13 colonies of England, America played an important supporting role in this first phase of the British Empire. But our restive ancestors were not fond of taxation without adequate representation (the same could be said of us today), and when we declared independence in 1776, the stage was set for a major transition in the British Empire. With our victory in 1783, Britain shifted its attention from the Americas to Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. At the peak of the British Empire, approximately 25% of the world’s populations came under British rule, and the physical boundaries of the empire covered approximately 25% of the land mass of the earth. But the rise and fall of empires, as well as superpowers, is not linear (just ask the Russians). Although it took over 400 years to build the British Empire to its peak, it only took a few decades until it started to unwind, due in large part to World War II. Many of those who had long remained part of the British Empire were ready to become independent, and over a few decades the number of people under British rule fell by 99%, from 700 million to 2 million. Thus the British Empire, and its status as the dominant world power, essentially came to an end. The British Empire is now a far cry from what it looked like only a decade or two before WWII, and this all happened in a fraction of a single generation. The decline of the British Empire took less than one generation, while many of its values and systems will likely persist for much longer. If the leadership has made rational choices, paid attention to the right values, and built systems to last, then the influence of an empire can last for many hundreds of years. The British Empire has such a legacy, a legacy that the British can be proud of. Other empires have come and gone, and there is no reason to think that things will be any different for the US. With the speed of communications and the rapidly changing political climate of today, it can be argued that a similar decline in our virtual empire can occur in an even shorter time frame. If, or rather when, the flattening world causes a diminution in US global dominance, will future generations of Americans be as proud of the legacy left from our age of dominance as the British are of theirs? Rather than worry about how long we can persist as a lone superpower, it is better to look at what our lasting legacy might be in this rapidly flattening world. The fortunate thing is that we, here and now, have the ability to influence this legacy. We don’t yet have to think of what could have, or should have been, but rather, we have the chance to shape history by shaping our legacy. Let’s consider what the British Empire left us, and then think about what the US Empire is likely to leave as long-lasting legacies. This article is adapted from a presentation at the ASCI/ AAP Joint Meeting, April 26, 2008, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.