Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order - Softcover

Kagan, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843541785 ISBN 13: 9781843541783

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2004

Synopsis

After years of mutual resentment and tension, there is a sudden recognition that the real interests of America and its allies are diverging sharply and that the transatlantic relationship itself has changed, possibly irreversibly. Europe sees the United States as high-handed, unilateralist, and recklessly belligerent; the United States sees Europe as spent, unserious and weak. The anger and mistrust on both sides are hardening into incomprehension.

In the influential journal Policy Review, the heavyweight commentator Robert Kagan analysed this impasse so incisively that each side was able to see themselves through the eyes of the other. Tracing the widely differing histories of America and Europe since the end of the Second World War, Kagan makes clear how Europe's need to escape a bloody past has led to a new set of beliefs about conflict, power and threat, while at the same time, the United States has evolved into the guarantor of the European order by dint of its might and global reach. This remarkable analysis is already being discussed by governments from Washington to Tokyo. It is essential reading.

'Come the hour, come the book... Kagan's book is neither a diatribe nor a polemic. It is a penetrating effort to shed some light on the confusion in transatlanticaffairs and to understand why Americans and Europeans are so frequently talking past each other... it ranks with Fukuyama's "The End of Civilization" and Huntingdon's "The Clash of Civilizations".' Raymond Seitz, The Times

'Compact and arresting... highly readable.' Brendan Simms, Sunday Times

'A very short book with a very big argument... Kagan's book has been the talk of diplomatic circles' Observer
'There is a particular intellectual pleasure to be gained form the originality and clarity of Robert Kagan's Paradise and Power... The originality of Mr Kagan's work is not so much that it identifies the division in attitudes between America and Europe, which has now become so visible, it is the way he explains it.' Economist

'Anyone who wants to discover how Europe's policy-makers look to Americans at this crucial moment should read this book.' Stephen Robinson, Daily Telegraph

'The most talked-about book of the year... Provocative... Paradise and Power is energising to read... Kagan's book has been taken as a wake-up call for European leaders' Mark Leonard, New Statesman'Brilliant... one of the most penetrating and influential accounts of European-American relations in recent years.' Timothy Garton Ash, Prospect

About this title

Review

From the beginning of George W Bush's presidency there has been a profound unease in relations between Europe and the United States. Robert Kagan's Paradise & Power: America and Europe in the New World Order offers a diagnosis and prognosis of the current malaise, which recent events such as Bush's "axis of evil" speech and UN divisions over Iraq have made even worse. Kagan argues that the 20th century has seen an inversion of history, whereby the once great, imperial, war-mongering powers of the 19th century (Britain, France and Germany) have become doves and multi-lateralists and the precocious and defenceless small power of the earlier era (America) has become a military and economic giant, hawkish and resolute in its defence of global security.

Europe (or more specifically France and Germany), Kagan argues, have learned that nation-states must live together or die, while America has come to rely on the blunt diplomacy of the pre-emptive strike. Europeans resent America for its bully-boy tactics; Americans get fed up with whining Europeans who would not enjoy their freedom to moan but for the post-1945 umbrella of NATO security. Kagan is wise and perceptive throughout his long essay and pleads reasonably that the US and the EU must develop a common policy that recognises their historical and strategic differences. He is a realist and there is little of the triumphalism to be found in similar recent works by American foreign policy experts such as Francis Fukuyama. Kagan is good on the military and diplomatic aspects of the question, but brushes over the resentments fuelled by America's MacDonaldisation of European culture. --Miles Taylor

Review

'One of those seminal treatises ... which will shape discussion of European-American relations for years to come' -- Dr. Henry Kissinger

'Paradise and Power ranks with Fukuyama’s 'The End of Civilization' and Huntingdon’s 'The Clash of Civilizations’' -- Raymond Seitz, The Times

‘Anyone who wants to discover how Europe’s policy-makers look to Americans at this crucial moment should read this book’ -- Stephen Robinson, Daily Telegraph

‘Brilliant’ -- Francis Fukuyama

‘Kagan’s book has been the talk of diplomatic circles... A very short book with a very big argument’ -- Observer

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1843541785
• ISBN 13: 9781843541783
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168