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America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics)

America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics)

by Tony Smith (Author), Richard C. Leone (Foreword)

  • Used

    Paperback 1995

    $7.56
Synopsis

The strength and prestige of democracy worldwide at the end of the twentieth century are due in good measure to the impact of America on international affairs, argues Tony Smith. Here for the first time is a book that documents the extraordinary history of American foreign policy with respect to the promotion of democracy worldwide, an effort whose greatest triumph came in the occupations of Japan and Germany but whose setbacks include interventions in Latin America and Vietnam. As Americans ponder the challenges of world affairs at the end of the Cold War, Smith suggests that they think back to other times when Washington's decisions were critical: not only to the end of the World Wars in 1918 and 1945, but to the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and the Civil War in 1865 as well. They will find that in the aftermath of victory, Washington determined to win the peace by promoting a concept of national security calling ultimately for democratic government in Europe, Latin America, and the Far East. So the Congress set out to reconstruct the South in 1867; America aimed to democratize the Philippines in 1898; Wilson sought to make the world safe for democracy , first in Latin America and then, after 1918, in Central and Eastern Europe; FDR and Truman dictated the democratization of Japan and Germany and called for democracy in Eastern Europe after 1945; Kennedy promoted the Alliance for Progress in Latin America; Carter launched his human rights campaign; Reagan (the most Wilsonian of Wilson's successors) heralded an international democratic revolution ; Bush called for a new world order ; and Clinton declared that our overriding purpose must be to expand and strengthen theworld's community of market-based democracies . Through a study of selected countries - most notably Germany, Japan, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, Iran, and Nicaragua (but also Mexico, Chile, Guatemala, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece, South Africa, and Russia)

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 476
 Edition: New e.
 Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 03 Jul 1995
ISBN 10: 069104466X
ISBN 13: 9780691044668
Book Overview: A historically sweeping, theoretically ambitious study of American attempts at promoting liberal democracy abroad, this is the most subtle and thorough examination of a mission that has had more than its share of successes, halts, detours, and deviations. No student of America in this world will be able to ignore it: there is simply no comparable volume. -- Stanley Hoffmann, Chairman, Center for European Studies, Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France No one concerned with America's role in the world can afford to ignore the powerful argument and impressive scholarship of this landmark study. -- Ronald Steel, University of Southern California, School of International Relations Breathtaking in its coverage... The author combines historical narrative with political analysis in dazzling fashion, particularly on Woodrow Wilson, whose pragmatic idealism is the leitmotif of this book. -- Arthur S. Link, Princeton University

Media Reviews
[Smith's] account of the 20th century is just about as close to unputdownable as it gets in the genre of political history, and ends up advocating what seems to be an appropriate level of optimism for what remains, after all, a terrifying and chaotic world. Washington Post America's Mission provides a comprehensive historical review of the record of American liberal internationalism. Tony Smith argues persuasively that liberal internationalism is not a cultural quirk of unsophisticated Americans. Rather, it has built on powerful global historical trends. The liberal internationalist streak in American foreign policy has, in turn, been responsible for shaping a liberal world order conducive to American security and economic interests. -- Francis Fukuyama New Republic This work, formidable in scope and scholarship, is a rousing defense of liberal Wilsonian internationalism... [Smith's] historical account [of attempts to implant democracy] is accompanied by a sophisticated analysis of the perspectives on democratization of Marxists, comparativists, and realists, who hold respectively, says the author, that the United States will not, cannot, and should not promote democracy worldwide. -- David C. Hendrickson Foreign Affairs Smith elegantly ties explanation of the past to prescription for the future. No other contemporary political scientist ... has connected those two dimensions to this subject so well. -- Mark P. Lagon Perspectives on Political Science America's Mission is a book with a mission. It's aim ... is nothing less than to overthrow the hitherto dominant theory dealing with American foreign affairs and to put in its place a different one. -- Theodore Draper New York Review of Books This contentious study of US foreign policy is sure to generate new debates about the ideals and realities that inspire and legitimize US foreign policy. Choice
Author Bio
Tony Smith is Cornelia M. Jackson Professor of Political Science at Tufts University and Senior Research Associate at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. His other works include Thinking Like a Communist: State and Legitimacy in the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba and The Pattern of Imperialism: The United States, Great Britain, and the Late-Industrializing World since 1815.