The American Empire and the Fourth World argues that the current imperial role of the United States began at its founding. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, which offered a qualified recognition of Aboriginal and treaty rights, infuriated many Anglo-American colonists. Their resulting sense of grievance was articulated in the Declaration of Independence which proclaims the "inalienable rights" of "all men" even as it accuses King George III of having "endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages." The United States has never faced, let alone resolved, this fundamental contradiction in its founding document. This failure manifested itself in the lawlessness and militarism that characterized U.S. treatment of Indigenous peoples in the most formative phase of the country's frontier expansionism. The exclusion of "savages" from the republic's founding ideals of human equality came increasingly to permeate U.S. foreign policy, culminating in the ethnic and religious prejudices colouring the so-called "war on terrorism." The American Empire and the Fourth World presents comparative accounts of policies toward Aboriginals that have done much to shape the interconnected histories of the U.S., Canada, Latin America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries. The volume introduces a larger literary project entitled The Bowl with One Spoon.

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