America's power has declined since 1945, yet America's democratic purposes are more widely emulated in the world today than ever before, and economic growth and employment in the United States in the 1980s reached levels that rivaled the boom years of postwar prosperity from 1947-1967. Challenging the pessimists who focus only on the decline of American power, this book argues that outcomes depend much more on how America defines its political identity or national purposes in the world community and what specific economic policies it chooses. In recent years, America has projected a more self-confindent political identity, anchoring an unprecedented trend even in the communist world towards freer political institutions; and future American economic policy choices, especially the need to reduce the budget deficit, still hold the key to preserving and enhancing what considerable power the United States retains. This pathbreaking book is intended for the general reader, but will be essential reading not only for economists, politicians, and policy makers, but also for scholars and students working in economics and international relations.

The Myth of America's Decline: Leading the World Economy into the 1990s

Business & Money

Nau, Henry R.

Economics

Oxford University Press

How can America be in decline and yet win the Cold War in 1989 and the Persian Gulf war in 1991? Because, as Henry R. Nau argues in this probing analysis of postwar policy, the Untied States, unlike the Soviet Union, shared power with its allies as it built a converging world community of political democracies and liberalized market. Today America leads that community as both the world's only military superpower and the one country Western governments trust to use military force for common objectives--a trust exemplified by the recent war in Kuwait. A loss of relative power, Nau contends, is not troublesome if it leads to more convergent domestic values and institutions among countries. Over a period of forty years, carefully chronicled in this book, the United States pursued political and economic policies that successfully nurtured Western democracies and integrated industrial economies. Through open markets, America helped allies catch up; and through open societies, the industrial nations overcame ethnic and economic divisions and grew to trust one another more. Although the United States lost relative economic power, it gained political friends and still remains, economically, the world's leader in absolute levels of productivity. Nor, according to the data assembled in this study, has the United States lost its ability to compete in foreign markets. The economic policies of the 1980s led to growth rates and manufacturing productivity increases that surpassed the boom years of American dominance from 1947-1967 and equaled or exceeded the performance of Germany and Japan in the latter part of the decade. The threat to our future, Nau contends, does not come from trade competition with the allies. It comes instead from domestic divisions that immobilize America's fiscal and domestic policies and prevent the country from taking the lead role in assisting the historic transformation underway in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and many developing countries. Americans have to decide whether half of their federal budget outlays should continue to go to middle class entitlements, distributed without regard to need, or whether some of these savings--as well as defense cuts--should go to needy people both at home and in the reforming countries abroad. Nau demonstrates that America can only live up to its high standards at home only if it recognizes that these standards are now widely recognized and accepted around the world. To turn America's back on a world yearning to be free would not only weaken the prospects for success in the reforming countries but scuttle America's self-image and confidence at home.

International

Debates about U.S. foreign policy have revolved around three main traditions--liberal internationalism, realism, and nationalism. In this book, distinguished political scientist Henry Nau delves deeply into a fourth, overlooked foreign policy tradition that he calls "conservative internationalism." This approach spreads freedom, like liberal internationalism; arms diplomacy, like realism; and preserves national sovereignty, like nationalism. It targets a world of limited government or independent "sister republics," not a world of great power concerts or centralized international institutions.
Nau explores conservative internationalism in the foreign policies of Thomas Jefferson, James Polk, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan. These presidents did more than any others to expand the arc of freedom using a deft combination of force, diplomacy, and compromise. Since Reagan, presidents have swung back and forth among the main traditions, overreaching under Bush and now retrenching under Obama. Nau demonstrates that conservative internationalism offers an alternative way. It pursues freedom but not everywhere, prioritizing situations that border on existing free countries--Turkey, for example, rather than Iraq. It uses lesser force early to influence negotiations rather than greater force later after negotiations fail. And it reaches timely compromises to cash in military leverage and sustain public support.
A groundbreaking revival of a neglected foreign policy tradition, Conservative Internationalism shows how the United States can effectively sustain global leadership while respecting the constraints of public will and material resources.

Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy under Jefferson, Polk, Truman, and Reagan

History

Americas

Princeton University Press

A reexamination of America's overloaded foreign policy tradition and its importance for global politics today
Debates about U.S. foreign policy have revolved around three main traditions―liberal internationalism, realism, and nationalism. In this book, distinguished political scientist Henry Nau delves deeply into a fourth, overlooked foreign policy tradition that he calls "conservative internationalism." This approach spreads freedom, like liberal internationalism; arms diplomacy, like realism; and preserves national sovereignty, like nationalism. It targets a world of limited government or independent "sister republics," not a world of great power concerts or centralized international institutions.
Nau explores conservative internationalism in the foreign policies of Thomas Jefferson, James Polk, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan. These presidents did more than any others to expand the arc of freedom using a deft combination of force, diplomacy, and compromise. Since Reagan, presidents have swung back and forth among the main traditions, overreaching under Bush and now retrenching under Obama. Nau demonstrates that conservative internationalism offers an alternative way. It pursues freedom but not everywhere, prioritizing situations that border on existing free countries―Turkey, for example, rather than Iraq. It uses lesser force early to influence negotiations rather than greater force later after negotiations fail. And it reaches timely compromises to cash in military leverage and sustain public support.
A groundbreaking revival of a neglected foreign policy tradition, Conservative Internationalism shows how the United States can effectively sustain global leadership while respecting the constraints of public will and material resources.

The United States has never felt at home abroad. The reason for this unease, even after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is not frequent threats to American security. It is America's identity. The United States, its citizens believe, is a different country, a New World of divided institutions and individualistic markets surviving in an Old World of nationalistic governments and statist economies. In this Old World, the United States finds no comfort and alternately tries to withdraw from it and reform it. America cycles between ambitious internationalist efforts to impose democracy and world order, and more nationalist appeals to trim multilateral commitments and demand that the European and Japanese allies do more.
In At Home Abroad, Henry R. Nau explains that America is still unique but no longer so very different. All the industrial great powers in western Europe (and, arguably, also Japan) are now strong liberal democracies. A powerful and peaceful new world exists beyond America's borders and anchors America's identity, easing its discomfort and ending the cycle of withdrawal and reform.
Nau draws on constructivist and realist perspectives to show how relative national identities interact with relative national power to define U.S. national interests. He provides fresh insights for U.S. grand strategy toward various countries. 
In Europe, the identity and power perspective advocates U.S. support for both NATO expansion to consolidate democratic identities in eastern Europe and concurrent, but separate, great-power cooperation with Russia in the United Nations. In Asia, this perspective recommends a shift of U.S. strategy from bilateralism to concentric multilateralism, starting with an emerging democratic security community among the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Taiwan, and progressively widening this community to include reforming ASEAN states and, if it democratizes, China. In the developing world, Nau's approach calls for balancing U.S. moral (identity) and material (power) commitments, avoiding military intervention for purely moral reasons, as in Somalia, but undertaking such intervention when material threats are immediate, as in Afghanistan, or material and moral stakes coincide, as in Kosovo.

At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)

Leone, Richard C.

Cornell University Press

Take a look inside the second edition!Click on the links below to preview the Introduction. Order your exam copy today by clicking on the "Request an Exam Copy" link above. Introduction Praise for Perspectives on International Relations 
"In a crowded field, Henry Nau′s textbook stands out..." Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University "...a lucid, multidimensional introduction to the intriguing ambiguities of world politics" Robert O. Keohane, Princeton University "...an outstanding textbook" John J. Mearsheimer, University of Chicago 
Lauded for its outstanding balance of accessibility and substance, Henry Nau’s Perspectives on International Relations lays a real foundation for further study in IR while delivering the critical thinking skills students need to grasp the events unfolding on the world stage. Adopters consistently report that the book’s even-handed application of three major viewpoints―realism, liberalism, and constructivism―is a singularly effective and engaging tool for getting students to understand how the seemingly abstract theories of IR make sense of global events and issues. 
While maintaining its brevity and focus, the second edition’s revision features the latest in world affairs, advancements in the scholarship, and refined pedagogical features throughout. New to this edition, in response to user reviews: <ul>
<li>Expanded coverage of Marxism, feminism, soft power, and other perspectives throughout the book and also in "Critical Theories" sections in each chapter; </li>
<li>Expanded coverage of key issues in IR: terrorism, ethnic conflict, foreign policy, civil society, global governance, the democratic peace, environmental issues, NGOs, and human security;</li>
<li>New "Spotlight" feature highlights the coverage of key ideas and concepts―e.g., alliances, balance of power, anarchy―so that students digest this information more readily;</li>
<li>A new, friendlier interior design, including more learning tools, such as a marginal glossary, maps, photos, tables, and figures.</li>
</ul>
PEDAGOGICAL FEATURES: 
<ul>
<li>MORE photos, with meaty and analytical captions, giving students a visual entrée into the perspectives. </li>
<li>UPDATED Using the Perspectives to Read Between the Lines boxes showcase the words and statements of politicians, pundits, and scholars on current world events. Nau shows students exactly how the three perspectives play a role in contemporary debates. </li>
<li>REVISED Parallel Timelines show how realist, liberal, and identity perspectives emphasize different events, from the origins of WWI to the end of the Cold War, thus illuminating how the perspectives―in relation to one another―alternately view cause-and-effect relationships. </li>
<li>MORE Perspectives and Levels of Analysis tables help students keep track of the ways that each perspective interprets events from the individual, domestic, and systemic levels of analysis. </li>
<li>NEW "Spotlight" feature helps students locate and define core IR concepts across the book. </li>
<li>NEW Marginal glossary helps students define concepts at a glance. </li>
</ul>

Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

CQ Press

Henry R. Nau’s best-selling book, Perspectives on International Relations, is admired for its even-handed presentation of realism, liberalism, constructivism, and critical theory and for integrating these perspectives in every chapter. Students are able to explore the ways these different perspectives shape our understanding of the root causes of historical events and current controversies, and then think critically about the world’s most urgent issues. The new Seventh Edition includes updates on Brexit, the rise of nationalism, the escalation of terrorism, the use of social media in political protests around the world, and continuing developments in North Korea, Syria, Iran, China, and Russia.

Perspectives on International Relations - International Student Edition: Power, Institutions, and Ideas

This bundle includes Henry&nbsp;Nau&#8242;s Perspectives on International Relations 7e and The CQ Researcher, Global Issues 2020 Edition

BUNDLE: Nau, Perspectives on International Relations 7e + The CQ Researcher, Global Issues 2020 Edition

CQ Researcher

Henry R. Nau’s bestselling book, Perspectives on International Relations, is admired for its even-handed presentation of realism, liberalism, constructivism, and critical theory―and for expertly applying those perspectives in every chapter, training students to think critically about the world’s most urgent issues. This hallmark of the book hasn’t changed; it highlights different causal perspectives from various levels of analysis to illuminate historical and current controversies in world affairs. But the overall length of the book has. With significantly briefer and more focused chapters, students can better grasp the causal logic and strong explanatory power of each of the perspectives as they explore the roots of major world events and approaches to critical issues.

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

Books by Nau, Henry R.

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

The Myth of America's Decline: Leading the World Economy into the 1990s

The Myth of America's Decline: Leading the World Economy into the 1990s

Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy under Jefferson, Polk, Truman, and Reagan

Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy under Jefferson, Polk, Truman, and Reagan

At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)

Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas

Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas

Perspectives on International Relations - International Student Edition: Power, Institutions, and Ideas

BUNDLE: Nau, Perspectives on International Relations 7e + The CQ Researcher, Global Issues 2020 Edition

Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas