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Tomorrow, the World : The Birth of U. S. Global Supremacy by Stephen Wertheim (2020, Hardcover)

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About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherHarvard University Press

ISBN-10067424866X

ISBN-139780674248663

eBay Product ID (ePID)3038519193

Product Key Features

Book TitleTomorrow, the World : the Birth of U. S. Global Supremacy

Number of Pages272 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2020

TopicUnited States / 20th Century, Military / World War II, International Relations / General, United States / General

IllustratorYes

GenrePolitical Science, History

AuthorStephen Wertheim

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1 in

Item Weight20 oz

Item Length9.2 in

Item Width6.1 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2020-011114

ReviewsIn the wake of [WWII], decision makers regarded military restraint not as a virtue but as a recipe for chaos. Intervention was seen as inevitable, and isolationism became a dirty word. Politicians debated particular engagements, but they rarely questioned America's role as global cop...But as Wertheim reminds us, foreign policy elites chose to take on this role, and they can choose to leave it behind., Stephen Wertheim isn't only a great historian of American foreign policy. He uses history to offer a critique of American foreign policy that Americans desperately need now., He brings into sharp focus the doings of elites...America's pursuit of global supremacy was, in his engaging and studious retelling, less the final outcome of long-simmering forces or of latent but unreasoned belief systems than a 'deliberate decision' made by a numerically small group of individuals at a very specific moment in time., The only recent book to explore U.S. elites' decision to become the world's primary power in the early 1940s--a profoundly important choice that has affected the lives of billions of people throughout the globe...Contributes to the effort to transform U.S. foreign policy by giving pro-restraint Americans a usable past. Though Tomorrow, the World is not a polemic, its implications are invigorating...Wertheim opens space for Americans to reexamine their own history and ask themselves whether primacy has ever really met their interests., In writing the history of the country's decision to embrace a militarist vision of world order--and to do so, counterintuitively, through the creation of the United Nations--Wertheim provides an importantly revisionist account of U.S. foreign policy in the 1940s, one that helps us think anew about internationalism today...The contemporary stakes of Wertheim's work are plainly apparent...A reminder of just how strange it is that Americans have come to see military supremacy as a form of selfless altruism, as a gift to the world., One does not need to be universally opposed to all of American policy since the Second World War to see the immense value of this book in showing the ideological lineage we have inherited that distorts how we talk about Grand Strategy through the present., You really ought to read it...It is a tour de force...While Wertheim is not the first to expose isolationism as a carefully constructed myth, he does so with devastating effect. Most of all, he helps his readers understand that 'so long as the phantom of isolationism is held to be the most grievous sin, all is permitted.'

Dewey Edition23

Dewey Decimal327.73

SynopsisA Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year "Even in these dismal times genuinely important books do occasionally make their appearance...You really ought to read it...A tour de force...While Wertheim is not the first to expose isolationism as a carefully constructed myth, he does so with devastating effect." --Andrew J. Bacevich, The Nation For most of its history, the United States avoided making political and military commitments that would entangle it in power politics. Then, suddenly, it conceived a new role for itself as an armed superpower--and never looked back. In Tomorrow, the World , Stephen Wertheim traces America's transformation to World War II, right before the attack on Pearl Harbor. As late as 1940, the small coterie formulating U.S. foreign policy wanted British preeminence to continue. Axis conquests swept away their assumptions, leading them to conclude that America should extend its form of law and order across the globe, and back it at gunpoint. No one really favored "isolationism"--a term introduced by advocates of armed supremacy to burnish their cause. We live, Wertheim warns, in the world these men created. A sophisticated and impassioned account that questions the wisdom of U.S. supremacy, Tomorrow, the World reveals the intellectual path that brought us to today's endless wars. "Its implications are invigorating...Wertheim opens space for Americans to reexamine their own history and ask themselves whether primacy has ever really met their interests." -- New Republic "For almost 80 years now, historians and diplomats have sought not only to describe America's swift advance to global primacy but also to explain it...Any writer wanting to make a novel contribution either has to have evidence for a new interpretation, or at least be making an older argument in some improved and eye-catching way. Tomorrow, the World does both." --Paul Kennedy, Wall Street Journal, A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year A new history explains how and why, as it prepared to enter World War II, the United States decided to lead the postwar world. For most of its history, the United States avoided making political and military commitments that would entangle it in European-style power politics. Then, suddenly, it conceived a new role for itself as the world's armed superpower--and never looked back. In Tomorrow, the World, Stephen Wertheim traces America's transformation to the crucible of World War II, especially in the months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the Nazis conquered France, the architects of the nation's new foreign policy came to believe that the United States ought to achieve primacy in international affairs forevermore. Scholars have struggled to explain the decision to pursue global supremacy. Some deny that American elites made a willing choice, casting the United States as a reluctant power that sloughed off "isolationism" only after all potential competitors lay in ruins. Others contend that the United States had always coveted global dominance and realized its ambition at the first opportunity. Both views are wrong. As late as 1940, the small coterie of officials and experts who composed the U.S. foreign policy class either wanted British preeminence in global affairs to continue or hoped that no power would dominate. The war, however, swept away their assumptions, leading them to conclude that the United States should extend its form of law and order across the globe and back it at gunpoint. Wertheim argues that no one favored "isolationism"--a term introduced by advocates of armed supremacy in order to turn their own cause into the definition of a new "internationalism." We now live, Wertheim warns, in the world that these men created. A sophisticated and impassioned narrative that questions the wisdom of U.S. supremacy, Tomorrow, the World reveals the intellectual path that brought us to today's global entanglements and endless wars., How did the United States appoint itself as the world's supreme military power? Stephen Wertheim delves into the archives of the U.S. foreign policy elite to trace armed dominance to its origin in World War II. He shows how officials and intellectuals suddenly chose to embrace perpetual dominance--at the price of perpetual war.

LC Classification NumberE744.W5325 2020