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The Short American Century: A Postmortem
by
Andrew J. Bacevich ,
Akira Iriye , Emily S. Rosenberg , Nikhil Pal Singh , Walter F. LaFeber , T.J. Jackson Lears , Eugene McCarraher , David M. Kennedy
Writing in "Life" magazine in February 1941, Henry Luce memorably announced the arrival of The American Century. The phrase caught on, as did the belief that America s moment was at hand. Yet as Andrew J. Bacevich makes clear, that century has now ended, the victim of strategic miscalculation, military misadventures, and economic decline. To take stock of the short America...more
Hardcover, 287 pages
Published
March 19th 2012
by Harvard University Press
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An impressive compilation of thought-pieces that challenge the notion that the last century was truly "the American Century". The preponderant role of American military power in the purported era of American dominance is a central theme of the book. Cornell history professor Walter LeFeber perhaps summarizes best the perils in the thinking that Henry Luce's famous phrase embodies and its real consequences, for America and the world:
"But critics of 'manifest destiny' or Luce's "American Century"
Exceptional compilation of essays/chapters such as "Pragmatic Realism versus the American Century" by T.J. Jackson Lears Professor of History at Rutgers. He quotes William Fulbright from 1966 "power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God''s favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations, to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image." Jackso...more
I am skeptical of this book. I've read a lot of pieces for undergrad which argued for the end of the American dream and the decline of America. We've got some issues to deal with, but I think more along the lines of Kagan - we've got some major issues to deal with, but the American dream is not "dead" unless we as a nation decide it is and no longer work to protect and strengthen it.
More interesting than I thought - it was more an examination of the social forces that have shaped the last centu...more
More interesting than I thought - it was more an examination of the social forces that have shaped the last centu...more
some excellent pieces - not yet finished but will be very worth while. at least a 4 - more later
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Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of colonel. He is the author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism and The New American Militarism. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York...more
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