Paradise and Power

Now revised and updated in paperback, the bestseller, talked about by everyone from Tony Blair to Jeremy Paxman, that has distilled the politics of our time: 'Kagan's book has already been distributed to every European Union ambassador... In the European Commission it is read as a primer to Bush administrative thinking. It is a rare achievement: a bestseller on foreign policy.' Julian Coman, Sunday Telegraph

This title argues that the interests of America and its European allies are diverging sharply. It makes clear how Europe's need to escape a bloody past has led to a new set of beliefs about conflict while at the same time the US has become the guarantor of the European order by dint of its might.

After years of mutual resentment and tension, there is a sudden recognition that the real interests of America and its allies are diverging sharply and that the transatlantic relationship itself has changed, possibly irreversibly. Europe sees the United States as high-handed, unilateralist, and recklessly belligerent; the United States sees Europe as spent, unserious and weak. The anger and mistrust on both sides are hardening into incomprehension.

In the influential journal Policy Review, the heavyweight commentator Robert Kagan analysed this impasse so incisively that each side was able to see themselves through the eyes of the other. Tracing the widely differing histories of America and Europe since the end of the Second World War, Kagan makes clear how Europe's need to escape a bloody past has led to a new set of beliefs about conflict, power and threat, while at the same time, the United States has evolved into the guarantor of the European order by dint of its might and global reach. This remarkable analysis is already being discussed by governments from Washington to Tokyo. It is essential reading.

'Come the hour, come the book... Kagan's book is neither a diatribe nor a polemic. It is a penetrating effort to shed some light on the confusion in transatlanticaffairs and to understand why Americans and Europeans are so frequently talking past each other... it ranks with Fukuyama's "The End of Civilization" and Huntingdon's "The Clash of Civilizations".' Raymond Seitz, The Times

'Compact and arresting... highly readable.' Brendan Simms, Sunday Times

'A very short book with a very big argument... Kagan's book has been the talk of diplomatic circles' Observer
'There is a particular intellectual pleasure to be gained form the originality and clarity of Robert Kagan's Paradise and Power... The originality of Mr Kagan's work is not so much that it identifies the division in attitudes between America and Europe, which has now become so visible, it...