Henry Luce, the American Century, and “Empire by Invitation”

In his famous article in Life of 17 February 1941, Henry R. Luce referred to “the belief – shared let us remember by most men living – that the 20th Century must be to a significant degree an American Century.” Although Luce celebrated internationalism in a rather nationalistic vein, he did, however briefly, put the rise of the United States in a comparative context. All previous dominant powers had operated on the basis of some sort of internationalist ideology. “Rome had a great internationalism. So had the Vatican and Genghis Khan and the Ottoman Turks and the Chinese Emperors and 19th Century England. After the first World War, Lenin had one in mind. Today Hitler seems to have one in mind.”

Luce recognized that America's role would in great measure depend on the response it received from the rest of the world. On this point he was relatively optimistic, because “most important of all, we have that indefinable, unmistakable sign of leadership: prestige. And unlike the prestige of Rome or Genghis Khan or 19th Century England, American prestige throughout the world is faith in the good intentions as well as the ultimate intelligence and ultimate strength of the whole American people.”

While Luce was wrong in some remarkable ways, he was surprisingly correct in some big ways. First, it was rather weird to announce that the twentieth century would be the American Century when four decades of that century had already elapsed without the United States assuming the mantle of leadership.