Intolerance In Day Of Empire, By Amy Chua

In Amy Chua’s book, Day of Empire, the main emphasis is how hyperpowers rise to the top, achieving global dominance, and how they fall off the global plateau. She writes about a theory that she believes is the secret to global dominance, and provides examples to further prove her theory. Chua believes the secret is to be as tolerant as the empire/nation can possibly be, and to obviously not be extremely intolerant. Empires should be tolerant of race, religion, and other cultures, and attempt to be open to all of their residents. Having said that, Chua also believes being too tolerant can harm a nation more than intolerance, and this leads to the downfall of many civilizations. One example used to prove her theory is the Empire of the Achaemenids (559 B.C. - 330 B.C.). This is the first example she uses to prove her theory. She mentions that the Achaemenids’ understanding of tolerance is completely different than our understanding of tolerance. They had a fairly orderly empire, and they allowed kings to govern their people based on the local customs, and most importantly, the king’s religion. The only time the kings became intolerant, was when order was not maintained to the best of it’s ability. The first king of the Empire, Cyrus the …show more content…
The main reason why she believes the US is so powerful is our outstanding tolerance. The US is unmatched when comes to its economy, military, opportunity. Even though the US doesn’t have to fear being conquered by another nation, it must remain tolerant in order to keep internal peace. The amount of opportunity the US has to offer makes it a destination for all cultures around the world, and the US is very tolerant of those cultures. Chua believes the US will fall to a power such as China, or India, but for now and the near future, the US will remain the world's Hyperpower. This US’s high-tolerance proves Chua’s theory the best out of all three