In those days when Rome ruled over a vast empire, the universal saying was that all roads led to Rome. And it was not a figure of speech because for virtually everyone living in any part of the far flung Roman Empire, the ambition was to somehow find their way to Rome, the magical seat of power within the empire. The vast lands under Roman rule were won inch by inch at the point of Roman swords as her powerful and well drilled armies marched all over the then known world overthrowing powerful or not so powerful kingdoms and bringing them under Roman rule which by the way, was very far from being benevolent as the aim of the conquerors was subjugation, many times brutal and always extremely beneficial to Rome. There was very little room for niceties as tributes in all forms and shapes, including men and women were repatriated to Rome so that the Romans could have their various itches scratched and soothed. There were revolts aplenty all over the empire but these were quickly, efficiently and ruthlessly suppressed as the default situation described as Pax Romana was quickly re-established after each act of rebellion.

Although those who lived under Roman rule bitterly resented their servile status under the iron heel of Rome, they enjoyed the comfort of some enlightenment which went a long way to sweeten their bitter pill. The Romans, apart from their guarantee of peace also provided substantial facilities which made life in the provinces decidedly more palatable before they were subjugated. The Roman Empire was won by soldiers but built by consummate engineers. They built both public and private facilities which improved the quality of life all over the empire. They built and built very well, so much so that some of the structures, especially the roads, aqueducts and baths which were built more than two millennia ago are still standing and serviceable in many parts of that long departed empire. If anything, the Romans improved the level of hygiene wherever they went in the empire. In one word, the Roman Empire brought civilisation to many parts of present-day Europe and the Middle East at a time when those parts cried out for civilisation. Just that they had to pay a very high price for whatever the Romans had to offer them.

The Romans governed their vast territories on foot or at best on horse-back. This is a very far cry from the facilities which are now available to present day rulers of the world. There is nowhere on earth which  is beyond the digital reach of the rulers who are now domiciled primarily in the United States of America, a country which rather than having a name, is a geographical description, a group of loosely attached territories occupying a portion of the northern part of the continent consisting of North and South. From this point of nomenclature alone, the USA is a problem. But, as must be expected from a country that thrives on hegemony, the people of the USA have simply taken to calling their country America which makes them Americans to the exclusion all those living on the continent of America but not in the United States of America.

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All those roads leading to Rome were conduits for the human and natural resources pouring into that city from all parts of the Roman Empire. It was clear that the building of the empire, far from being a benevolent enterprise was exploitative in the extreme. All the choice products of the empire were sent on to Rome to cater for the exaggerated appetites of the Romans and those appetites were so deep and varied that trying to satisfy them was, in the end, an exercise in futility. It just could not be done. By way of an example, the Coliseum in the centre of Rome and therefore in the centre of the empire was built to entertain the good people of Rome, catering as it did to the blood lust of pampered Romans. The Coliseum was the equivalent of any national stadium anywhere in the world today. Instead of games of football or any other sport,  what was presented to the insatiable Romans were spectacles of the ritual slaughter of animals of all descriptions as well as human beings who fought to the death or people who were executed by being fed to wild animals right there in the presence of thousands of cheering people. The animals and other props needed to put up these spectacles were of course brought in from places all over the far flung empire for their few minutes of fame before they were despatched with the wild cheers of the Romans in their tortured ears. Empires are created for one thing and one thing only, to be exploited by the owners of the empire. This was proved definitively by the Roman Empires and has been amply confirmed by all other empires that existed before, during and after the collapse of the Roman Empire. In our time we have been part of the British Empire which had such a reach around the globe that it was said that it was an empire on which the sun never set. Well, the sun has now set on that empire and only its odious memories linger. That is the ultimate fate of all empires. They rise, they flourish and they perish passing the torch on to succeeding empires which go through the same process all over again.

Empires are archaic institutions. They have been with us since the dawn of human history and indeed the history of the world can be summed up in the history of the various empires which have risen and fallen in their appointed times. So intimately woven are empires and history that Francis Fukuyama, an American for all his Japanese name, exultantly proclaimed the end of history when the Soviet Union collapsed spectacularly leaving the field open to the only global power left standing, the United States of America. At this point in time however, Fukuyama would be the first or at least, one of the first to admit that his proclamation was a tad premature as all the requirements for power contestation, which as Fukuyama proposed for history to be written are still present with us. It has become quite clear that empires still exist and the competition for the occupation of empire sized portions of the world is alive and well.

The world has come a long way since the halcyon days of the Roman Empire. It is indeed no longer the same since the red covered maps of the British Empire acquired various other colours signifying the birth of a rash of new countries. The world may have changed but the dynamics remain the same as it is clear now that all roads lead to New York on the eastern seaboard of the United States of America. This is the case even though there is no formal Empire of the United States of America. This may be true but only because the world has changed to the extent that formal empires are no more in vogue. That said, it is clear that we now have to accommodate the wishes of the United States which is why it can be said that all roads now lead to New York in the same way that they used to do, to Rome when it was the centre of the world.

New York became known to history as New Amsterdam after its foundation by the Dutch on the island of Manhattan, which incidentally was equipped with one of the largest natural harbours in the world. The Dutch hold on their settlement was however  always tenuous and in course of time they were displaced by the English who went on to name it after the Duke of York who later became King James  II of England. The tussle between the two nations over the New York real estate went on from side to side over a fifty year period. It came to an end when the Dutch ceded the settlement to the English crown in exchange for Suriname, a sugar producing backwoods area in South America. Suriname, because it was a prime sugar producing colony at a time when sugar was king may have been an attractive proposition then but today, it remains even more of a backwoods area famous only for producing a string of outstanding footballers; Gullit, Rikard, Davids, Seedorf, Kluivert, Van Dijk (current Dutch captain), Wijnaldum and Hasselbank, some of the outstanding footballers who over the years have turned out in the colours of the Dutch national team. In the meantime, New York has gone on to become the largest and richest conurbation in the world with a population topping the twenty million mark within which no less than eight hundred different languages are spoken. For this reason alone New York stands out as the pre-eminent destination for people from all over the world, In the same way that Rome was in her heydays.

To give a spoiler alert, this article is really not about New York. The city happens to be a convenient starting point for a series of articles about the United States and what she means to and for the rest of the world. True, New York is not the capital of the USA but in terms of raw power, it stands head and shoulders above Washington DC, the political capital. This is because the base on which the power of the US is built is commerce, which is solidly based in New York, specifically on Wall Street, the most important commercial address in the world.

Just as Rome bestrode the world in her pomp and prime and pride, the USA is now the most visible country in the world, with people from every country being represented in one way or the other around the honey pot that the country represents. People strive to get there in order to fulfil all kinds of ambitions, in the chase for what has come to be known as the American dream, a dream which we hear about ad nauseum but one which continues to elude the majority of people who live under the capacious umbrella that is the American state. The power of that state, reaching as it does into every part of the world, is truly awesome and for this reason alone, we cannot and will not ignore the USA.

As promised this is the first in a series of articles which will attempt to throw some light on this country which more than any other in the world is a magnet attracting people from all corners of the globe.