The World Without US

Great debate and as others have pointed out the film reminds us of a few inconvenient truths i.e the threat of nuclear war especially in Asia given the instability in North Korea, China's use of that as an ace in the Great War, questions about Taiwan and Japan's response to an emerging China. The point is that U.S hegemony should not be taken for granted. But, some of the talking heads look like fear mongers. The main counter is that history teaches us that intellectuals and policy experts have often wildly exagerrated threats and steered U.S. foreign policy towards disaster. There is a very smug assuarance from people with really bad track records and a history of escalating or even ushering conflicts. So, as Niall Fergusson himself says of others in this film, watch it with a big grain of salt.

Although the review and the video clip aroused my curiosity, this film was not very well executed. It never really answers the question that is posed at the outset, "what would the world be like without the US?" It is definitely right-leaning, but does raise several provocative and somewhat interesting observations. A lot of the logic becomes muddled and the film focuses (almost nauseatingly so) on one British professor's point of view. No matter what your "political persuasion" might be, this is a shallow, unbalanced and unconvincing film.

This is an update of my previous review...

I felt that this really wasn't a very objective film. It was trying to make an argument (how bad off the world would be without the US), not examine the issue.

It really only focuses on how bad the rest of the world would be without US involvement. There is no explorations of positives.

If you agree with that point of view, you will probably like this film. It focuses heavily on situations where the US has had a positive influence, to say the least.

If you disagree with that point of view, don't watch it, this film spends virtually no time discussing situations in which the US has had a negative impact.

So I give this film a 1 star because it really seems to want to reinforce a particular point of view, one which I don't entirely share. Since it is not the history lesson it is advertised to be, but instead an argument for a point of view, I didn't really like it.

This is a good documentary. It does not lean either way with American political parties, but gives a unbiased opinion of America in the world.
I think their is a little for everyone in this documentary, very educational and should be mandatory in every world history class.
I think is does prove that a Ron Paul presidency would have been a global disaster.

This is a rationalization of militarism, and focuses solely on the beat to death horses everyone that watches the news knows are in the race. Nothing new here.