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help of numerous research assistants. In particular, I would like to thank Jonathan Baum, Max Helveston, Eleni Martsoukou, Hari O'Connell, Patrick Toomey, Julie Wilensky, and Julie Xu, each of whom devoted dozens, in some cases hundreds, of hours to this book. Aditi Banerjee, Wei-Tseng Chen, Nusrat Choudhury, Stephen Clowney, Neha Gohil, Seth Green, Jean Han, Vijay Jayaraman, Eunice Lee, Stephen Lil-ley, Brian Netter, Marc Silverman, Elizabeth Stauderman, Ting Wang, and Marcia Yablon were remarkable students in a seminar I taught in Spring of 2004; I am very grateful for the insights they provided during this book's formative stages. The following former students also provided critical assistance on particular chapters: Patricia Adura-Miranda, Werner Ahlers, Zack Alcyone, Chris Bebenek, Michael Bretholtz, Nishka Chandrasoma, Jinhua Cheng, Dennis Clare, Elbridge Colby, Jose Coleman, Rohit De, Hugh Eastwood, Kenneth Ebie, Yunlong Gao, James Grimmelman, Josh Hafetz, Ethel Higonnet, Mimi Hunter, Eisha Jain, Shruti Raviku-mar Jayaraman, Svilen Karaivanov, Lara Kayayan, Abha Khanna, Aaron Klink, Nancy Liao, Katherine Lin, Sarah Lipton-Lubet, Anna Manasco, Elliott Mogul, Alex Parsons, Intisar Rabb, Jeremy Robbins, Nick Robinson, Brian Rodkey, Erin Roeder, Saleela Salahuddin, Jeff Sandberg, Martin Schmidt, Tim Schnabel, Vance Serchuk, Shahrzad Shafaghiha, Jingxia Shi, Fredo Silva, Bart Szewczyk, Krishanti Vignarajah, Clarence Webster, Carine Williams, Shenyi Wu, and Justin Zaremby.

In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to Dean Harold Koh of the Yale Law School for his support and friendship; Gene Coakley and Theresa Cullen for their amazing library assistance going far above and beyond the call of duty; my assistant, Patricia Spiegelhalter, for her unsurpassed efficiency; and my exceptional agents, Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu.

The preface to this book is adapted from an essay entitled “Asian Immigration,” which originally appeared in David Halber-stam, ed., Defining a Nation: Our America and the Sources of Its Strength (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2003).

Last, apologies, love, and thanks to my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, genuinely the pride and joy of my life.

INTRODUCTION

1. “To Paris, U.S. Looks Like a ‘Hyperpower,’ “ International Herald Tribune, Feb. 5, 1999; “France Presses for a Power Independent of the U.S.,” New York Times, Nov. 7, 1999.

2. Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America's Empire (New York: Penguin, 2004), pp. 301-2.

3. See, for example, Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2003); Patrice Higonnet, Attendant Cruelties: Nation and Nationalism in American History (New York: Other Press, 2007).

4. The literature on empires is truly massive. For a tiny sample from just the last several years, see J. H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006); Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 2003); John Steele Gordon, An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004); Valerie Hansen, The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000); Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001); Dominic Lieven, Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals (New Haven: Yale Nota Bene, 2002); Anthony Pagden, Peoples and Empires (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001); and Colin Wells, The Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004).

5. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, E. V. Riev, ed., Rex Warner, trans. (New York: Penguin Classics, 1954); see also Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War (New York: Random House, 2005); Bernard Grofman, “Lessons of Athenian Democracy: Editor's Introduction,” PS: Political Science and Politics, vol. 26 (Sept. 1993), pp. 471-74.

6. Edward Gibbon, The History of the