The economic crisis the United States is only beginning to experience is not simply a recession. Nor is it merely the natural outcome of a costly war. It is the result of an unflinching commitment to conquest, even at the expense of debasing America’s founding principles. In outlining America’s transformation from republic to empire, Paths to Power will tell a story as old as George Washington. Beginning with the first president, America has been governed by leaders loyal only to despotism. It is this unwavering allegiance which makes the collapse of the nation imminent today. In reassessing the history of the United States with this in mind, Paths to Power will explain that the true aims of the American Independence movement of 1776 have yet to be achieved. Since that time, brave activists have fought to find the republic which was pledged to them but never given, as citizens plagued by the tyranny of slavery and race discrimination challenged people to rethink America’s guiding principle that “all men are created equal.” Paths to Power will show how a movement for civil rights became, in its finality, a mobilization against the imperial tenets which have distracted America from its intended course. Their historic struggle for freedom is our struggle today, for as they discovered, the enemy of the undiscovered republic is not a law, or a war, or even a president. It is an empire.