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Title: Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World by Walter Russell Mead, Richard C. Leone ISBN: 0-415-93536-9 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: September, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (21 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Fascinating. What does it say about the post-9/11 world?
Comment: Mead's Special Providence is at its best in describing the four historical schools of American foreign policy. His framework is apt at explaining the motivations and actions of the major political figures and movements and applies in many cases to domestic policy debates as well. It also rings true with my gut feeling that binary classifications - isolationist/internationalist, hawk/dove, right/left, Democrat/Republican - do not really have a lot of explanatory or predictive power, at least since the end of the Cold War.
His conclusions are also thought provoking though not terribly well developed or convincing. Is the American foreign policy elite really much more out of touch with the American "folk" than it was fifty years ago? Have "Jeffersonian" - constitutionalist, small government - voices really been marginalized since the collapse of the Soviet Union? Does the US democratic system still provide a key advantage over Europe in formulating and executing successful policy? These are all really important questions, but I wish Mead had either left them as such or spent more time arguing his conclusions. The last two chapters are the only weak part of the book.
And, although he can't be faulted for it, I found myself wishing that the book were published later in the George W. Bush administration and, particularly, after September 11. He makes the conventional point that there are different voices in the Bush administration. But, is Bush himself a Hamiltonian (commercialist) in Jacksonian (populist) clothing or the opposite? Also, is our reaction to September 11 the key event that points the way forward for America's post-Cold War role in the world or simply a manifestation of the Jacksonian impulse to fight a total war once provoked?
Despite the weaknesses I noted, the fact that Mead has me thinking about these issues and caring what he would have to say about them shows what a really good bock Special Providence is. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Mead as a text in Japan
Comment: I have found Mead's book very valuable for explaining American foreign policy to Japanese graduate and undergraduate students. The great advantage of the book is that it rises above the battles over particular policy decisions and gives an aerial view of the various historical and social forces that go into the formation of American foreign policy.
The chapters on Jacksonianism and Wilsonianism are especially useful in explaining American reactions to September 11th and conflicting American attitudes about America's role in the world. These chapters are so good that they are worth the laborious process of working through the English text with Japanese students. Mead writes well with an absence of jargon and an impressive array of interesting observations. I hope that a Japanese translation is in the works.
Rating: 4
Summary: Special Providence
Comment: Very good book for understanding American foreign policy and political culture. The four categories (Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, Jacksonian) are very useful and effective at describing the tensions in American thought. Some parts are slow going (I got tired of reading about missionaries in the Wilsonian chapter) but for the most part enjoyable reading.
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Title: Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order by Robert Kagan ISBN: 1400040930 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 28 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone by Joseph S. Nye Jr. ISBN: 0195150880 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy by Ivo H. Daalder, James M. Lindsay ISBN: 0815716885 Publisher: The Brookings Institution Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: American Empire : The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy by Andrew J. Bacevich ISBN: 0674009401 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: 15 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Promised Land, Crusader State : The American Encounter with the World Since 1776 by Walter McDougall ISBN: 0395901324 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 15 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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