After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order

Blurred Vision After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order By Emmanuel Todd Columbia. 233pp. $29.95.

THE FRENCH are obsessed by America, meaning the United States. The daily press, the corner bookstore, the dinner table, all testify to the fascination America exercises, and to the

power for good or ill attributed to it. A thriving intellectual industry demonstrates that the world's security and economy are threatened by American blunders ormanipulations. We pay attention because we are ourselves uneasy about some of our policies; because we like to believe rational analysis can lead to rational action; also because caricature and stereotype can cut close to the bone. After the Empire is a good example of such elucubrations.

Emmanuel Todd, an anthropologist, social analyst and prominent member of the French Institute for Demographic Studies, is a prolific author of books that tend to be both readable and provocative. One of them, published in 1976, foretold The Final Fall of'a Soviet empire at a time when few doubted it would endure. In 2002, before our Iraq bungle, he presented The Breakdown of the American Order as imminent. The book is now available in a translation from the French that is adequate, though a bit plunky. English-language readers will learn from it that, as a result of "foolish strategic choices," the U.S., already in decline, must prepare for a reduction of its power and, probably, of living standards too.