America Abroad
Why the Sole Superpower Should Not Pull Back from the World
Stephen Brooks author William Wohlforth author
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:29th Sep '16
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£19.49(9780190692162)
A decade of exhausting wars, punishing economic setbacks, fast-rising rivals and unrealized global aspirations has called America's global role into question as never before. Will the US long continue to be the only superpower in the international system? Should it sustain the world-shaping grand strategy it's followed since the dawn of the Cold War? Everyone who thinks about international relations cares about these questions. But while opinions are common, answers grounded in scholarship are hard to find because of lack of data and theory relevant to the 21st as opposed to the 20th century. In America Abroad, Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, two of the nation's leading international relations scholars, fill this gap with a bracing assessment of contemporary America's shifting global role. Their findings will reorient the debate on America's future position and grand strategy. Using new data and new approaches to measurement tailored to 21st century global politics, they show that United States' position as a peerless superpower will be secure long into the future. Engaging a vast body of the newest scholarship, they develop the theory needed to answer the most pressing grand strategic question of the day: How would America's interests fare if the United States decided to disengage from the world? Their answer runs counter to a rising chorus of calls from many academics and policy makers for US the "come home": retrenchment would put core US security and economic interests would be put at risk. America Abroad is not, however, an unalloyed endorsement for the foreign policy status quo. By providing a new way to think about the United States' position in the world, Brooks and Wohlforth move beyond the unrealistic dichotomies that characterize much of the contemporary debate. Although rise of China will not soon end America's career as the sole superpower, it is a significant shift that alters the strategic landscape and demands adjustments. And they develop a distinct position in the evolving debate on US foreign policy, now torn between calls for a more expansive style of global leadership that seeks to remake the world in America's image and demands for it to retrench and leave the world's troubles behind. Their findings support America remaining globally engaged but focusing on three objectives that have been at...
"Brooks and Wohlforth have produced a big, important book that will be essential reading for anyone who cares about what America's role in the world should be." -- Peter Trubowitz, author of Politics and Strategy: Partisan Ambition and American Statecraft "This thoughtful, well researched, and timely book counters the dangerous strategic myths of our era. Brooks and Wohlforth show that America is indeed still great and that the military, economic, and diplomatic investment Washington continues to make to stabilize the international order is both affordable and wise." --Thomas J. Christensen, author of The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power "Brooks and Wohlforth correct current calls for retrenchment and isolation with a spirited defense of realistic American internationalism. They analyze the enduring sources of American power and the essential role American influence exerts for peace and prosperity around the world. This book is essential reading for all citizens interested in foreign policy." -Jeremi Suri, author of Liberty's Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama "America Abroad does an impressive job of advancing the debate over U.S. grand strategy. Brooks and Wohlforth provide crystal-clear distinctions in explaining what constitutes their preferred grand strategy-"deep engagement"-and then systematically build a powerful case drawing on the best available theories and evidence. Not everyone will be convinced, but America Abroad raises the bar in this important policy debate." --Charles Glaser, author of Rational Theory of International Politics "Brooks and Wohlforth argue that...the United States is the most powerful country in the world, and will remain so for many decades - if not indefinitely. The US has used this power, they argue, to create and sustain an international order that has made it a vastly safer and wealthier country than it would have been otherwise. Though Brooks and Wohlforth didn't intend it as such, their book is a kind of anti-Trump: a direct and devastating riposte to Trump's vision of US foreign policy. And while Trump's ideas come from... well, Trump himself, Brooks and Wohlforth's arguments are grounded in the most up-to-date research on how US foreign policy works." --Zack Beauchamp, Vox "America Abroad is a carefully argued tract, and worth a careful read."--American Thinker "Brooks and Wohlforth have produced perhaps the most convincing defense of American power since the Cold War ceased."--The American Conservative
ISBN: 9780190464257
Dimensions: 165mm x 239mm x 28mm
Weight: 544g
288 pages