"With his policy of containment, US diplomat George F. Kennan (1904-2005) devised a way to resist the Soviet Union's attempt to conquer the world for Communism. That way was to go to the brink of war to prevent war. His idea was first expressed in his famous Long Telegram from Moscow on February 22, 1946.It took genius to see a wartime ally as a dangerous adversary, and to convince the American leadership to act upon it. Back in the United States, the young diplomat first acted as deputy commandant in the National War College. He then operated as director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff to restore Europe from wartime destruction. By 1950 Kennan began to reverse his thinking, believing that the military component of American policy was going too far. While his old colleagues continued to develop US power, given point by the atomic bomb, Kennan withdrew from government and began a new career as a public intellectual campaigning for a more peaceable policy in his eighteen books, and articles and talks.The breakdown of the Soviet economy in the 1980s showed that Kennan was right the second time as well. Always sympathetic to the Russian people and culture, which the later Soviet leaders appreciated, Kennan was able to welcome the new non-Communist Russia into a more peaceable relationship with the democracies that ended the Cold War. His life and works have become a national treasure."--Provided by publisher.
"The United States became a great power in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and a superpower during World War II without quite knowing it. Few Americans fully appreciate the fact today. How many people know that in recent years we have had 250,000 troops in 700 bases around the world? Consider our recent history of military operations in the Caribbean, East Asia, the Far East, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Balkans. In America Rising, David Felix attempts to explain how and why America became a superpower by examining the political and economic factors that have driven its ascendence and their relationship throughout history. Felix begins with the dawn of America, showing how America amassed wealth and political power from the start through wars, assertions of economic might, and the creation of a cultural and philosophical base. The nation began with a political order, derived from our British origins, which enabled our pragmatic culture to take advantage of the vast wealth of a near-virgin continent. Political and economic freedom were paired, authority yielding to both freedoms. Our farmers and businessmen were dreamers, manufacturing realities out of those dreams. Felix's account then makes a point of neoclassical economics as an anvil on which to hammer out a sharper sense of the content of our existence."--Jacket
