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42nd out of 200 books
—
24 voters
America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy
Francis Fukuyama’s criticism of the Iraq war put him at odds with neoconservative friends both within and outside the Bush administration. Here he explains how, in its decision to invade Iraq, the Bush administration failed in its stewardship of American foreign policy. First, the administration wrongly made preventive war the central tenet of its foreign policy. In additi...more
Paperback, 264 pages
Published
March 20th 2007
by Yale University Press
(first published January 1st 2006)
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Chapter 7 begins with these words: "It seems very doubtful at this juncture that history will judge the Iraq war kindly." Such words from one of the more impressive conservative voices in the United States, Francis Fukuyama, make this an important work.
Nonetheless, this is a powerful volume--and it builds on a slender work that is a genuine contribution in the debate over democratic nation building--his 2004 volume, State-Building. Indeed, these two works should probably be considered together....more
Nonetheless, this is a powerful volume--and it builds on a slender work that is a genuine contribution in the debate over democratic nation building--his 2004 volume, State-Building. Indeed, these two works should probably be considered together....more
Francis Fukuyama has often been more poised and clinical than his neoconservative contemporaries (including William Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz). Perhaps this makes his backflip away from mainline neocon thought understandable, but it doesn't make it any more forgivable. Many reviewers censure the Johns Hopkins University professor for not providing a personal defense of his defection. All the political lather threatens to obscure the actual book, which contains a concise history of neoconservati
...more
Fukuyama has 3 good ideas for books, but this less than 200 page adaptation of a lecture series failed to live up to the author's ability. His summary of "neoconservatism", and the 2nd Bush administration's arrogant abandonment of the doctrine effectively allows Fukuyama to illustrate different strains within the same movement and distance himself from people like Paul "Iraq will finance its own reconstruction" Wolfowitz. He skims through development (both political and economic), finishing by s...more
Feb 02, 2010
Bibliomantic
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
international-relations
Reading this text I got the impression that Francis Fukuyama is a very serious man. I cannot imagine him laughing. Perhaps I’m wrong, and Mr. Fukuyama is fun to be around, but in this book at least he comes across as someone who sees some serious problems and has not time for humor or irony. Well, he does employ irony from time to time, but it’s with the flair of a mortician, or perhaps a copy editor.
With that in mind, Fukuyama does indeed tackle some very serious issues, and does so very capab...more
With that in mind, Fukuyama does indeed tackle some very serious issues, and does so very capab...more
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In this book Francis Fukuyama repudiates the label of neo-conservative, though not a lot of the elements of it. Basically what he's trying to do is simultaneously say that realism is misguided, since the internal dynamics of states matters a lot in how they conduct their external relations, while denigrating liberalism as weak (implicitly, anyway) and the current crop of neoconservatives as naive and over-simplifying.
Their idea that a democracy could be installed in Iraq thus magically making a...more
I like the analysis on what neoconservatism is, how the Bush administration veered away from some of its core principles, and some the mistakes they made along the way, but his solution is pretty much comes straight out of After Victory: Order and Power in International Politics, so just read that.
The first part of the book which is basically a history of neoconservatism by someone who knows what he's talking about (as opposed to 80% of the people who drop the term in conversation). Fukuyama's history of the neocons is excellent and highly recommended. The second part of the book describes the direction Fukuyama would have American foreign policy take. It can be summed up in one word: Kerry-esque.
This book was written in the wake of the failure in Iraq hence it had a major influence on the writer. apparently he declared that the neocons' policy had to be toppled down , and the new American foreign policy ought to be more dependent on soft power and hidden sovereignty and hegemony .. no more Americans' iron fist !
A book like that , in 2006 , is like a rational promotion for the democrats , especially Obama's new open minded policy , to be the new POTUS!
A book like that , in 2006 , is like a rational promotion for the democrats , especially Obama's new open minded policy , to be the new POTUS!
having read the previous book by this author, "The End of History and the Last Man", i was eager to see what he was up to now. this book is an insider's look at the neoconservative movement, which the author claimed allegiance to until recently, along with an analysis of where the White House neocon's went wrong on Iraq. the author then proposes a potential new style of foreign policy for the future of the US.
i would have give this book 5 stars, but it was obviously extended from an academic pa...more
i would have give this book 5 stars, but it was obviously extended from an academic pa...more
Powerful, fascinating account of the neoconservative history since the 1930's and its current legacy vision which includes the author's criticism of the Iraq war and the Bush administration's misjudgment of the world's reaction
20/20 rear-view vision of the failures of the Bush team by ex-neocon Francis Fukuyama . Hardly worth the price of entrance.
Fukuyama tours schools of the America's foreign policy though and points out the infirmities of the neo-conservative approach...
America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy by Francis Fukuyama (2006)
This is a good history of Neo-conservatives from one of the fathers of the movement. Straight and with no spin.
I enjoyed this book, but it's pretty dense going if you're not used to books about political theory.http://irisheagle.blogspot.com...
Hindsight is 20/20.
i HEART Fukuyama.
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Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama (born 27 October 1952) is an American philosopher, political economist, and author.
Francis Fukuyama was born in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. His father, Yoshio Fukuyama, a second-generation Japanese-American, was trained as a minister in the Congregational Church and received a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago. His mother, Toshiko Kawata Fu...more
More about Francis Fukuyama...
Francis Fukuyama was born in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. His father, Yoshio Fukuyama, a second-generation Japanese-American, was trained as a minister in the Congregational Church and received a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago. His mother, Toshiko Kawata Fu...more
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