Chua’s latest book is Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance — and Why They Fall. A hyperpower, Chua says, is the rare government that has amassed enough military, intellectual and cultural might to dominate the entire world. The United States is the latest hyperpower, but the list includes ancient Rome, the Persian Empire, the Tang Dynasty of China, and Ghengis Khan’s Mongols.

One trait that allows a government to achieve hyperpower status, Chua says, is tolerance and incorporation of ethnic and racial minorities. Although previous hyperpowers were often brutal, they did welcome conquered peoples into facets of government — particularly the military — which allowed the regime to build overwhelming might and conquer more lands.

“Every hyperpower in history rose to global dominance through tolerance,” Chua says. “I don’t mean tolerance in the modern human rights sense. Rather, I mean lots of different kinds of people live, participate, prosper and rise in your society regardless of race, ethnicity or nationality. In order to dominate the world, a society has to be at the cutting edge of the world’s technological, economic and military frontier. At any given point in history, the world’s most valuable human capital is never going to be found within any one ethnic group or within any one religion. So to pull away from your rivals on a global scale, you’ve got to be able to pull in the best and brightest from the world.”

Conversely, hyperpowers in history have all fallen when they became more insular and intolerant toward other races and ethnicities. Chua will discuss the United States as the world’s current hyperpower and the role that diversity, respect, assimilation, tolerance and political strategy play in the country’s democracy.

Chua has been a member of the Yale Law School faculty since 2001. Her Chinese grandparents lived in the Philippines and owned one of the largest plastics conglomerates in the country. Her father immigrated to the United States to attend M.I.T. and earned his Ph.D. He and his wife were so poor, however, that during their first two years in this country, they could not afford to heat their apartment.

Chua will discuss her insight into the role immigrants and minorities play in U.S. society, as well as federal immigration policy and the challenge unrestricted immigration imposes on local communities.

Chua recently wrote in an op-ed article for The Washington Post that the United States historically has successfully incorporated immigrants into its society largely because the country has a national identity strong enough to hold together divergent communities.

But, Chua warned, “America’s glue can be subverted by too much tolerance. Immigration advocates are too often guilty of an uncritical political correctness that avoids hard questions about national identity and imposes no obligations on immigrants. For these well-meaning idealists, there is no such thing as too much diversity. The right thing for the United States to do — and the best way to keep Americans in favor of immigration — is to take national identity seriously while maintaining our heritage as a land of opportunity. U.S. immigration policy should be tolerant but also tough.”

Chua will appear at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 25, 2008, in Room 125 of the Science Building on WestConn’s Midtown campus, 181 White St in Danbury. The lecture will be free and open to the public. Copies of Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance — and Why They Fall will be available for purchase following the lecture.

Chua, the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law, joined Yale Law School after teaching at Duke, Columbia, Stanford and New York University. Her expertise is in the areas of contracts, law and development, international business transactions, and law and globalization. She received Yale Law School’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003. Before entering academics, she practiced with the Wall Street firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, where she worked on international transactions throughout Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Chua wrote the 2002 New York Times bestseller, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. She holds a B.A. and J.D. from Harvard University. While at Harvard Law School, she served as executive editor of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, she clerked for Chief Judge Patricia Wald of the United State Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

For more information, call the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486 or the Office of the President at (203) 837-8754.

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