Awards

• Short-listed for Lionel Gelber Prize 2007

Overview

Most Americans believe the United States had been an isolationist power until the twentieth century. This is wrong. In a riveting and brilliantly revisionist work of history, Robert Kagan, bestselling author of Of Paradise and Power, shows how Americans have in fact steadily been increasing their global power and influence from the beginning. Driven by commercial, territorial, and idealistic ambitions, the United States has always perceived itself, and been seen by other nations, as an international force. This is a book of great importance to our understanding of our nation’s history and its role in the global community.

Full Product Details

9780375724916

Table of Contents

Reviews

Brilliant and original. . . . A tour de force of historical writing that should change the way many people view the country's past. . . a landmark. -- Foreign Affairs <br> The most important reassessment of early United States foreign policy to appear in over half a century. Compellingly written and provocatively argued, it goes far toward explaining -- to the world but also to ourselves -- who we Americans are today, and where we may be going. --John Lewis Gaddis, author of The Cold War <br> A first-rate work of history, based on prodigious reading and enlivened by a powerful prose style. . . . Helps bring long-dead diplomatic history to life. -- The Economist <br> Provocative and deeply absorbing. . . . [Kagan] shows how America was always a player, and often a ruthless one, in the great game of nations. -- The New York Times Book Review

Author Information

Robert Kagan is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is director of the U.S. Leadership Project. He is the author of A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977-1990 and coeditor with William Kristol, of Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy. Kagan served in the State Department from 1984-1988. He lives in Brussels with his wife and two children.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available