U.S. Diplomatic Relations - General & Miscellaneous

Promised Land, Crusader State

Name: Promised Land, Crusader State
Author: Walter A. McDougall
ISBN: 9780395830857

by Walter A. McDougall

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Overview

Taking up the torch of George Kennan, Pulitzer Prize winner Walter McDougall proposes nothing less than to cleanse the vocabulary of our post-Cold War debate on America's place in world affairs. Looking back over two centuries, he draws a striking contrast between America as a Promised Land, a vision inspired by the "Old Testament" of our diplomatic wisdom through the nineteenth century, and the contrary vision of America as a Crusader State, which inspired the "New Testament" of our foreign policy beginning at the time of the Spanish-American War and reaching its fulfillment in Vietnam. To this day, these two visions and these two testaments battle for control of the way America sees its role in the world.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian McDougall renders a service here to students of diplomatic history and general readers alike. In a concise analysis of U.S. diplomatic history, he defines terms such as "isolationism," which are bandied about so casually in post-Cold War debates on U.S. foreign policy. Adapted from his lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, this supremely readable book is presented in conversational style. McDougall divides American diplomatic history into novel "Old Testament" and "New Testament" phases. The Old Testament, which centered on safeguarding liberty at home, extended from the Revolution to the 1890s; the New Testament, featuring crusades abroad, extends from the Spanish-American War to the present. Within the two phases, he identifies eight schools of thought that battle for supremacy today. The challenge for the future is to decide which intellectual currents in America's view of the world should be retained in crafting a new foreign policy. An important work; strongly recommended for all libraries.James Holmes, Fletcher Sch. of Diplomacy, Tufts Univ., Medford, Mass.