Overview

Many Americans are bewildered by the hostilities and even hatred toward the United States on the part of newly independent Third World nations. Experienced diplomat and scholar David D. Newsom seeks to understand these animosities in this review of US relations with the Third World since World War II. ""The Imperial Mantle"" traces the upheavals in the postwar era as the peoples of British, Dutch, Belgian, and Portuguese empires demanded and gained independence. As the most powerful leader of the free world, despite its anti-colonial heritage, the United States tended to inherit the imperial mantle in this period, becoming the focus of both expectations and demands from the new nations. How the United States lived up to these expectations, and how it responded to the challenge of leadership and the burdens of being the dominant world power are the central issues in this book. It should be valuable reading for anyone who wants to understand the foreign policy challenges that America will face in the 21st century.

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9780253338341

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Reviews

To understand why some people in the Third World like to throw rocks at us, read this book. --Richard B. Parker Two questions have constantly been posed to me over these years. Those in new nations have asked, 'Why does the US, with its own record of independence, not understand the attitudes of the Third World?' In the US, people ask, 'Why do the new nations exhibit such anti-American sentiments when we oppose imperialism and provide substantial help to them?' Whoever writes about the expressions and actions of the Third World faces immediate problems of credibility from both sides. Some may feel that dissident voices critical of the United States are overemphasized or exaggerated. I have no excuse; looking back at events I have observed I have often felt the only honest voices were those that told us what we did not want to hear. New nations often resent foreign analysis. In the developed world, those who seek to explain vagaries of the Third World are called apologists. The irrelevant question, 'Whose side are you on?' is frequently asked. --David D. Newsom

To understand why some people in the Third World like to throw rocks at us, read this book. --Richard B. Parker Two questions have constantly been posed to me over these years. Those in new nations have asked, 'Why does the US, with its own record of independence, not understand the attitudes of the Third World?' In the US, people ask, 'Why do the new nations exhibit such anti-American sentiments when we oppose imperialism and provide substantial help to them?' Whoever writes about the expressions and actions of the Third World faces immediate problems of credibility from both sides. Some may feel that dissident voices critical of the United States are overemphasized or exaggerated. I have no excuse; looking back at events I have observed I have often felt the only honest voices were those that told us what we did not want to hear. New nations often resent foreign analysis. In the developed world, those who seek to explain vagaries of the Third World are called apologists. The irrelevant question, 'Whose side are you on?' is frequently asked. --David D. Newsom

Author Information

David D. Newsom is a former Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary of State and served as U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Indonesia, and the Philippines. After retiring from the Foreign Service, he became Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and professor and dean at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and professor in the Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is currently a senior fellow at the University’s Miller Center. He is the author of The Soviet Brigade in Cuba, Diplomacy and the American Democracy, and The Public Dimension of Foreign Policy.

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