An Empire in Denial; America is strong, but lacks the will to rule the world.

Byline: Stryker McGuire

Journalism, a wise editor once said, is the first rough draft of history. These days, with all media traveling at warp speed, historians are sometimes turning out their own first drafts. Niall Ferguson is one such thoroughly modern scholar. He's got faculty appointments on both sides of the Atlantic--at New York University and Oxford. His provocative insights are sought by talk-show bookers as well as high-minded conferences.

As an example of history on the fly, Ferguson's eye-opening new book "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire" (400 pages. Allen Lane ) could hardly be timelier. An examination of American imperialism past and present, it lands amid the scandalous allegations about U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib prison and the June 30 handover of power in Iraq. "Colossus" is a logical sequel to Ferguson's acclaimed "Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World." Ferguson believes in liberal empires that promote equality and free trade. And he believes that it would be good for the world if the United States stepped into the vacuum left by the fall of the British Empire. But he has doubts that America is up to the job.

America's problem, says Ferguson, is that it is an empire in denial. It possesses the strength but not the will of a proper empire. It has 752 military installations in more than 130 countries and accounts for as much as a third of the world's economic output. But America is also a ...