Colossus by Niall Ferguson FTP: Thesis Case Study

You’ll often find an author laying out his hypothesis, or a clarification if he’s updated the book in some shape, in the preface or introduction. Then in the introduction or the first chapter, you’ll find an explicit thesis.

Ferguson wrote an updated preface to Colossus to answer some critics and common misconceptions. That preface clarified his position. Note, that an author clarifying his positions doesn’t always mean he was unclear before. People tend to shoehorn arguments into how they see them. Ferguson, however, clarified because he noticed various responses from the Left and the Right. And he felt it important to respond. This also gives us, the reader, better insight into what to expect. We get, from the main source, what he’s after.

Here’s Ferguson laying out explicitly his thesis. I will bold the thesis. Everything after is Ferguson clarifying what’s in store for the reader.

This book argues not merely that the United States is an empire but that it always has been an empire. U…