What America Owes the World: The Struggle for the Soul of Foreign Policy

by H.W. Brands

For two hundred years, Americans have believed that they have an obligation to improve the lot of humanity, a belief that has consistently shaped U.S. foreign policy. Yet within this consensus, there are two competing schools of thought: the "exemplarist" school (Brands' term) which holds that what America chiefly owes the world is the benign example of a well-functioning democracy, and the "vindicationist" school which argues that force must sometimes supplement a good example. In this book, H.W. Brands traces the evolution of these two schools as they emerged in the thinking and writing of the most important public thinkers of the past two centuries.

Genres: History, American History, Military History, Politics

346 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

H.W. Brands is an acclaimed American historian and author of over thirty books on U.S. history, including Pulitzer Prize finalists The First American and Traitor to His Class. He holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his PhD. Originally trained in mathematics, Brands turned to history as a way to pursue his passion for writing. His biographical works on figures like Franklin, Jackson, Grant, and both Roosevelts have earned critical and popular praise for their readability and depth. Raised in Oregon and educated at Stanford, Reed College, and Portland State, he began his teaching career in high schools before entering academia. He later taught at Texas A&M and Vanderbilt before returning to UT Austin. Brands challenges conventional reverence for the Founding Fathers, advocating for a more progressive and evolving view of American democracy. In addition to academic works, his commentary has featured in major documentaries. His books, published internationally and translated into multiple languages, examine U.S. political, economic, and cultural development with compelling narrative force. Beyond academia, he is a public intellectual contributing to national conversations on history and governance.

Reviews

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting interpretation of an essential question in the history of USFP: What should America's relationship to the world be? Brands spells out two schools of thought on this question: the vindicationist and exemplarist schools. Both schools exist within the spectrum of American exceptionalism because they both believe the US has a special role to play in world history. The vindicationists believe that American must go out into the world and shape in something like its own image. They must actively try to shape the international environment and stamp out or contain threats. He includes as vindicationists Mahan, TR, Social Darwinists, Wilson, Lippman, Kennan, Cold War liberals, Niebuhr, and neocons.

Exemplarists, in contrast, believe that the best thing the US can do for the world is be that shining city on a hill, or an example of a functioning, prosperous democracy that doesn't cause trouble in the world and can be emulated by all. Many exemplarists believe it is too dangerous to go into the world with a crusading mindset, others think that the desire to do so has been implanted by manipulative capitalists, and others doubt that America has the knowledge, patience, or moral high ground to take this kind of action. He includes as exemplarists Jefferson (rhetorically, at least), most 19th century politicians, Charles Beard, Lincoln Steffens, and the Wisconsin historical school.

Brands traces the back and forth between this groups in a series of long chapters covering major figures as representative of broader versions of exemplarist or vinidicationist thinking in a particular historical period. Most of these are excellent, and they don't just cover extremely well known figures. The back and forth of these groups holds the book's structure together nicely until the Cold War, when vindicationism became a consensus among both parties and ideological groups. Exemplarists largely retreated into the academy and the fringes of the left and right. The book remains interesting at that point, but the debate shifts to how/why the US should go out in the world rather than whether it should.

I'd recommend this book for scholars of USFP or American politics in general. It would also be useful for someone comping in USFP to check out some of these chapters, which summarize important figures in accessible, interesting prose. I'd say this book pairs very well with Michael Hunt's Ideology and USFP, which is focused on the more unconscious cultural forces and assumptions that undergird much USFP.