Imperial Designs; Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana
Editorial Reviews
Review
Conservatives used to warn us about the dangers of utopianism: of the unintended consequences of hubristic attempts to socially engineer brave new worlds conjured in the heads of intellectuals. Now Americans are once again learning that lesson, but the perpetrators are...conservatives. Gary Dorrien's guidebook to the men and women who dreamed up our Iraq misadventure is deeply informed, deeply penetrating, and, above all, deeply moral
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-Rick Perlstein, author, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
Did neoconservative intellectuals help lead us to war in Iraq? Gary Dorrien's probing, stimulating book helps us answer this question once and for all. Imperial Designs in brilliant and timely
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-John Patrick Diggins, Distinguished Professor of History and author of Up from Communism
The imperial ambitions of G.W. Bush's foreign policy did not originate like a thunderclap from the tragedy of 9/11, but were sown years before in the grandiose thinking of neoconservative policy thinkers. They called themselves realists but, once in power, turned out to be deeply destructive fabulists. Gary Dorrien tells this important story with a sober, judicious brilliance that contrasts starkly with the men who are his subject. Understanding the depth of their illusions is an essential first step toward righting the nation.
-William Greider, author of The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
Imperial Designs is an intellectually sophisticated study of the neoconservative ideologues who have seized control of U.S. foreign policy. Extensively researched and carefully argued, it provides a brilliant portrait of their background and ideas, as well as a call for a liberal internationalist alternative.
-Lawrence S. Wittner, Professor of History, SUNY-Albany and author of The Struggle Against the Bomb
With cool analysis and astonishing, comprehensive documentation of the neoconservative takeover of current American foreign policy, Dorrien lays out the danger to our own national self-interest of 'empire heightened by ideological ardor.' It's a remarkable book. Regardless of who wins the elections of 2004, this book will provide any reader with urgent reason to say to fellow Americans and our leaders: 'Cease the arrogance. Stop acting as if America's role in the world is to rule it.'.
-Donald W. Shriver, Jr., President Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary in New York
Book Description
In the waning months of the cold war, shortly before an expiring Soviet Union finally disintegrated, a group of neoconservative policymakers and intellectuals began to argue that the moment had come to create an American-dominated world order. Some of them called it "the unipolarist imperative." Instead of reducing military spending, they contended, the United States needed to expand its military reach to every region of the world, using America's tremendous military and economic power to create a new Pax Americana. This book describes how the ideology of American global preeminence originated during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, developed in the 1990s, gained power with the election of George W. Bush, and reshaped American foreign policy after September 11, 2001.
Structured as a narrative, this account deals with government policymakers and outside advocates. It tells the story of the development of unipolarist ideology and its role in recent American Foreign policy. It makes an argument about the nature and problems of this ideology, emphasizing that an unrivaled superpower makes the whole world its geopolitical neighborhood. It offers a critique of the unilateralist militarism of the second Bush administration. And it contends that the problem of imperial expansiveness, though dramatically heightened by the Bush administration, did not begin with it. The problem is inherent in the anxiety of being a global hegemon.
Imperial Designs; Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana
Imperial Designs,Gary J. Dorrien,Routledge,0415949807,Conservatism,Government - U.S. Government,History & Theory - General,Political Ideologies - Conservatism & Liberalism,Political Process - Political Parties,Political Science,Political parties,Politics / Current Events,Politics/International Relations,Right-wing extremists,United States,Conservatism & right-of-centre democratic ideologies,Political Science / General,USA
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