Dangerous Nation - Hardcover

Kagan, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375411054 ISBN 13: 9780375411052

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2006

Synopsis

From the author of the immensely influential and best-selling Of Paradise and Powerâ a major reevaluation of Americaâ s place in the world from the colonial era to the turn of the twentieth century.Robert Kagan strips away the myth of Americaâ s isolationist tradition and reveals a more complicated reality: that Americans have been increasing their global power and influence steadily for the past four centuries. Even from the time of the Puritans, he reveals, America was no shining â city up on a hillâ but an engine of commercial and territorial expansion that drove Native Americans, as well as French, Spanish, Russian, and ultimately even British power, from the North American continent. Even before the birth of the nation, Americans believed they were destined for global leader* Underlying their ambitions, Kagan argues, was a set of ideas and ideals about the world and human nature. He focuses on the Declaration of Independence as the document that firmly established the American conviction that the inalienable rights of all mankind transcended territorial borders and blood ties. American nationalism, he shows, was always internationalist at its core. He also makes a startling discovery: that the Civil War and the abolition of slaveryâ the fulfillment of the ideals of the Declarationâ were the decisive turning point in the history of American foreign policy as well. Kagan's brilliant and comprehensive reexamination of early American foreign policy makes clear why America, from its very beginning, has been viewed worldwide not only as a wellspring of political, cultural, and social revolution, but as an ambitious and, at times, dangerous nation.

About this title

Review

"'A rare achievement: a bestseller on foreign policy.' Julian Coman, Sunday Telegraph 'Come the hour, come the book... a penetrating effort to shed some light on the confusion in transatlantic affairs.' Raymond Seitz, The Times"

About the Author

Robert Kagan is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and a columnist for The Washington Post. He is also the author of A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977–1990, and editor, with William Kristol, of Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy. Kagan served in the U.S. State Department from 1984 to 1988. He lives in Brussels with his family.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0375411054
• ISBN 13: 9780375411052
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 527