From one of our leading experts on foreign policy, a full-scale reinterpretation of America’s dealings—from its earliest days—with the rest of the world. It is Walter Russell Mead’s thesis that the United States, by any standard, has had a more successful foreign policy than any of the other great powers that we have faced—and faced down. Beginning as an isolated string of settlements at the edge of the known world, this country—in two centuries—drove the French and the Spanish out of North America; forced Britain, then the world’s greatest empire, to respect American interests; dominated coalitions that defeated German and Japanese bids for world power; replaced the tottering British Empire with a more flexible and dynamic global system built on American power; triumphed in the Cold War; and exported its language, culture, currency, and political values throughout the world. Yet despite, and often because of, this success, both Americans and foreigners over the decades have routinely considered American foreign policy to be amateurish and blundering, a political backwater and an intellectual wasteland. Now, in this provocative study, Mead revisits our history to counter these appraisals. He attributes this unprecedented success (as well as recurring problems) to the interplay of four schools of thought, each with deep roots in domestic politics and each characterized by a central focus or concern, that have shaped our foreign policy debates since the American Revolution—the Hamiltonian: the protection of commerce; the Jef- fersonian: the maintenance of our democratic system; the Jacksonian: populist values and military might; and the Wilsonian: moral principle. And he delineates the ways in which they have continually, and for the most part beneficially, informed the intellectual and political bases of our success as a world power. These four schools, says Mead, are as vital today as they were two hundred years ago, and they can and should guide the nation through the challenges ahead. Special Providence is a brilliant analysis, certain to influence the way America thinks about its national past, its future, and the rest of the world.

Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World

Politics & Social Sciences

Mead, Walter Russell

Philosophy

Alfred.A. Knopf

An illuminating account of the birth and rise of the global political and economic system that, sustained first by Britain and now by America, created the modern world. Walter Russell Mead, one of our most distinguished foreign policy experts, makes clear that the key to the predominance of the two countries has been the individualistic ideology of the prevailing Anglo-American religion. Mead explains how this helped create a culture uniquely adapted to capitalism, a system under which both countries thrived. We see how, as a result, the two nations were able to create the liberal, democratic system whose economic and social influence continues to grow around the world. With wit, verve, and stunning insight, Mead recounts what is, in effect, the story of a centuries-long war between the English-speaking peoples and their enemies. Sustained by control of the oceans that surround them, the British and their American heirs built a global system of politics, power, investment, and trade over the past three hundred years. Along the way, the two nations developed a sophisticated grand strategy that brought the English-speaking powers to a pinnacle of global power and prestige unmatched in the history of the world. Since Oliver Cromwell's day, the English-speakers have seen their enemies as haters of liberty and God who care nothing for morality, who will do anything to win, and who rely on a treacherous fifth column to assure victory. Those enemies, from Catholic Spain and Louis XIV to the Nazis, communists, and Al-Qaeda, held similar beliefs about their British and American rivals, but we see that though the Anglo-Americans have lost small wars here and there, they have won the major conflicts. So far. The stakes today are higher than ever; technological progress makes new and terrible weapons easier for rogue states and terror groups to develop and deploy. Where some see an end to history and others a clash of civilizations, Mead sees the current conflicts in the Middle East as the latest challenge to the liberal, capitalist, and democratic world system that the Anglo-Americans are trying to build. What we need now, he says, is a diplomacy of civlizations based on a deeper understanding of the recurring conflicts between the liberal world system and its foes. In practice, this means that Americans generally, and especially the increasingly influential evangelical community, must develop a better sense of America's place in the world. Mead's emphasis on the English-speaking world as the chief hero (and sometimes villain) in modern history changes the way we see the world. Authoritative and lucid, God and Gold weaves history, literature, philosophy, and religion together into an eminently important work—a dazzling book that helps us understand the world we live in and our tumultuous times.

God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World

Business & Money

Economics

KNOPF

The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People

From the acclaimed author of God and Gold and Special Providence, a groundbreaking new work that overturns the conventional understanding of the Israeli-American relationship and explores the fate of the Jewish people. In this brilliant investigation, one of our premier scholars of American foreign policy contends that both pro- and anti-Zionists have unintentionally collaborated in a myth of monolithic American-Jewish support for Israel that exaggerates Jewish unity concerning Israel, overstates the influence of Jewish lobbyists, and underestimates the potential for change in the Israeli-American relationship. Mead unveils the little-known incidence of non-Jews such as J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller lobbying for a Jewish homeland well before the foundation of the modernist Zionist movement. He makes clear how, in contrast, many Jewish Americans feel at odds with Israel's right-wing nationalists; and how developments under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama drove the most heated American debate over Israel since the 1940s. Throughout, Mead's singular intelligence and lively prose penetrate layers of opaque history and politics, illuminating a better way forward.

History

Middle East

A stunningly insightful account of the global political and economic system, sustained first by Britain and now by America, that has created the modern world. The key to the two countries' predominance, Mead argues, lies in the individualistic ideology inherent in the Anglo-American religion. Over the years Britain and America's liberal democratic system has been repeatedly challeged—by Catholic Spain and Louis XIV, the Nazis, communists, and Al Qaeda—and for the most part, it has prevailed. But the current conflicts in the Middle East threaten to change that record unless we foster a deeper understanding of the conflicts between the liberal world system and its foes.

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A groundbreaking work that overturns the conventional understanding of the Israeli-American relationship and, in doing so, explores how fundamental debates about American identity drive our country's foreign policy. In this bold examination of the Israeli-American relationship, Walter Russell Mead demolishes the myths that both pro-Zionists and anti-Zionists have fostered over the years. He makes clear that Zionism has always been a divisive subject in the American Jewish community, and that American Christians have often been the most fervent supporters of a Jewish state, citing examples from the time of J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller to the present day. He spotlights the almost forgotten story of left-wing support for Zionism, arguing that Eleanor Roosevelt and liberal New Dealers had more influence on President Truman's Israel policy than the American Jewish community--and that Stalin's influence was more decisive than Truman's in Israel's struggle for independence. Mead shows how Israel's rise in the Middle East helped kindle both the modern evangelical movement and the Sunbelt coalition that carried Reagan into the White House. Highlighting the real sources of Israel's support across the American political spectrum, he debunks the legend of the so-called "Israel lobby." And, he describes the aspects of American culture that make it hostile to anti-Semitism and warns about the danger to that tradition of tolerance as our current culture wars heat up. With original analysis and in lively prose, Mead illuminates the American-Israeli relationship, how it affects contemporary politics, and how it will influence the future of both that relationship and American life.

Vintage

Mortal splendor: The American empire in transition

Argues that the decline of America is inevitable, examines the efforts of the past four administrations to deal with this decline, and suggests that we must learn to accept our economic and social interdependence with the Third World

Mortal Splendor: The American Empire in Transition

Houghton/Mifflin

"God has a special providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America."--Otto von Bismarck America's response to the September 11 attacks spotlighted many of the country's longstanding goals on the world stage: to protect liberty at home, to secure America's economic interests, to spread democracy in totalitarian regimes and to vanquish the enemy utterly. One of America's leading foreign policy thinkers, Walter Russell Mead, argues that these diverse, conflicting impulses have in fact been the key to the U.S.'s success in the world. In a sweeping new synthesis, Mead uncovers four distinct historical patterns in foreign policy, each exemplified by a towering figure from our past. Wilsonians are moral missionaries, making the world safe for democracy by creating international watchdogs like the U.N. Hamiltonians likewise support international engagement, but their goal is to open foreign markets and expand the economy. Populist Jacksonians support a strong military, one that should be used rarely, but then with overwhelming force to bring the enemy to its knees. Jeffersonians, concerned primarily with liberty at home, are suspicious of both big military and large-scale international projects. A striking new vision of America's place in the world, Special Providence transcends stale debates about realists vs. idealists and hawks vs. doves to provide a revolutionary, nuanced, historically-grounded view of American foreign policy.

Politics & Government

Routledge

From one of our most brilliant and original writers on U.S. foreign policy, a stunning and timely book on the policy of the Bush administration and its current grand strategy for the world. Mead begins by analyzing America’s historical approach to the world—by no means perfect, but reasonably moral and reasonably practical on the whole. Then he examines the explosive foreign policy of the Bush administration and the uproar it has caused at home and abroad. Bush, according to Mead, is often strategically right but tactically at fault in his attempts to lead a divided nation—and a divided coalition of allies—in a dangerous struggle against ruthless enemies. We see how the mass terror attacks of 2001 have changed the political and strategic problems of American foreign policy. Despair and decay in the Arab world now present America and its allies with an extraordinarily difficult challenge. The accelerating collapse of civilized life in broad reaches of Africa—and the looming disasters of a similar kind in Central Asia—threatens to create lawless, violent zones where terrorism can thrive, and weapons of mass destruction and biological and chemical weapons can proliferate. We learn why key American alliances have frayed and why the Bush administration’s pronouncements and actions have ignited the most acrimonious U.S. political battles over foreign policy since the Vietnam War. Mead closes with a rigorous assessment of both Bush and his critics, and describes the urgent steps the United States must take lest casualties in the war on terror mount and the war itself spin out of control. He proposes a new approach to the war that can rebuild domestic and international support for a tough antiterror policy, outlines a new initiative for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and recommends sweeping changes for reforming international institutions, including the United Nations Security Council. Power, Terror, Peace, and War is a clear, concise guide to some of the most pressing issues before us, today and for the foreseeable future.

Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk

International affairs expert and award-winning author of Special Providence Walter Russell Mead here offers a remarkably clear-eyed account of American foreign policy and the challenges it faces post—September 11.Starting with what America represents to the world community, Mead argues that throughout its history it has been guided by a coherent set of foreign policy objectives. He places the record of the Bush administration in the context of America’s historical relations with its allies and foes. And he takes a hard look at the international scene–from despair and decay in the Arab world to tumult in Africa and Asia–and lays out a brilliant framework for tailoring America’s grand strategy to our current and future threats. Balanced, persuasive, and eminently sensible, Power, Terror, Peace, and War is a work of extraordinary significance on the role of the United States in the world today.

From the acclaimed author of "God and Gold" and "Special Providence," a groundbreaking new work that overturns the conventional understanding of the Israeli-American relationship.

Americas

HighBridge Audio

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mead, Walter Russell. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mead, Walter Russell

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mead, Walter Russell. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World

God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World

The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People

God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World

The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People

Mortal Splendor: The American Empire in Transition

Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World

Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk

Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk

The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People