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The American Mission and the 'Evil Empire': The Crusade for a

The American Mission and the 'Evil Empire': The Crusade for a "Free Russia" Since 1881

by David S . Foglesong (Author)

  • New

    Illustrated 2007

    $31.52
Synopsis

David Foglesong tells the fascinating story of American efforts to liberate and remake Russia since the 1880s. He analyzes the involvement of journalists, political activists, propagandists, missionaries, diplomats, engineers, and others in this grand crusade, paying special attention to the influence of religious beliefs on Americans' sense of duty to emancipate, convert, or reform Russia. He discusses the impact of popular debates about changing Russia on how Americans felt about the United States, showing how the belief that Russia was being remade in America's image reaffirmed faith in America's special virtue and historic mission and that opposition to the spread of American influence in Russia was characterized as evil from the late nineteenth century. While the main focus is on American thinking and action, the book also discusses the responses of Russian and Soviet governments, Russian Orthodox priests, and ordinary Russians to American propaganda campaigns, missionary work, and popular culture.

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More Information

Format: Illustrated
 Pages: 364
 Edition: 1
 Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 13 Sep 2007
ISBN 10: 0521671833
ISBN 13: 9780521671835
Book Overview: The fascinating story of American efforts to liberate and remake Russia since the 1880s.

Media Reviews
'Foglesong's expose of Americans' 'heady sense of their country's unique blessings' helps make sense of the giddiness, followed by rank disillusionment, vis-a-vis the post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s and 2000s.' Stephen Kotkin, Prospect Magazine
'The author's singular achievements is to show that well before the cold war, Russia served as America's dark double, an object of wishful thinking condescension and self-righteousness in a quest for American purpose. ...' Prospect Magazine
'Beautifully written and well argued, the book is suitable for use in upper-class electives and graduate courses and should be of interest to specialists on both sides of the field (US and Soviet).' History
This timely and trenchant book looks at the cultural and political roots of American attitudes toward Russia from the late nineteenth century through the present day and makes a strong case that these attitudes have helped keep U.S.-Russian relations moving through an unhappy cycle. -Foreign Affairs
Foglesong's book provides a panoramic view of American popular attitudes toward Russia, one that is illustrated with many arresting cartoons and magazine covers. It should provoke a wider debate about the rationality of evaluating Russia with reference to an idealized view of the United States, as well as the deeper sources of this tendency. -Deborah Welch Larson, H-Diplo
This is first-rate history, well researched, persuasively argued, and original, and should serve for some time as the standard single-volume work on the full sweep of modern U.S.-Russian relations. -Walter L. Hixson, H-Diplo
In the 21st century, the American debate on the prospects of modernizing Russia and on the Americans' role in this process is still going strong even though it began more than a century ago. This is why David Foglesong's book aimed at elucidating the mechanisms of misrepresentations which threaten both Russian-American relations and the world security as a whole is of equal importance for the academic community and for the policy makers in both Russia and the United States. -Victoria Zhuravleva, H-Diplo
Foglesong demonstrates that powerful Americans have again and again seen the possibility, even necessity, of spreading the word to Russia, and then, when Russia fails to transform itself into something resembling the US, have recoiled and condemned Russia's perfidious national character or its leaders-most recently Putin. The author's singular achievement is to show that well before the cold war, Russia served as America's dark double, an object of wishful thinking, condescension and self-righteousness in a quest for American purpose-without much to show for such efforts inside Russia. The author thereby places in context the cold war, when pamphleteers like William F Buckley Jr and politicians like Ronald Reagan pushed a crusade to revitalise the American spirit. Russia then was a threat but also a means to America's end (some fixed on a rollback of the alleged Soviet spawn inside the US-the welfare state-while others, after the Vietnam debacle, wanted to restore faith in the United States as a virtuous nation with a unique historical mission ). Foglesong's expose of Americans' heady sense of their country's unique blessings helps make sense of the giddiness, followed by rank disillusionment, vis-a-vis the post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s and 2000s. -Stephen Kotkin, Prospect Magazine
[David Foglesong's] sources are copious and the research extensive...He exposes the successes and failures of numerous presidents and diplomats with clarity and makes a fine point of the sharp differences in approach of such leaders as Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. -Edward M. Bennett, Emeritus Washington State University, The Journal of American History
Recommended. -Choice
Beautifully written and well argued, the book is suitable for use in upper-class electives and graduate courses and should be of interest to speacialists on both sides of the field (U.S. and Soviet). -History: Reviews of New Books, Irina Mukhina
Author Bio
David S. Foglesong is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is the author of America's Secret War Against Bolshevism: US Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920 (1995).