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Overview
Wars and Peace is a history of the way that a range of Americans have tried to conceptualize peace during five national security crises: the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Award-winning author David Mayers examines the intellectual foundations of U.S. foreign policy since 1861 and analyzes the way that Americans across the political spectrum have, in times of conflict, conceptualized the era that would follow hostilities. Mayers looks at this history in terms of a current problem: How should the United States fashion its policy in the post-Cold War world? What is striking about previous attempts to create postwar orders, Mayers reveals, is that they failed in the test to fulfill the hopes of their authors. Yet the cumulative impact of these ideas has been to shape collective imagination in America. Mayers argues that earnest attempts at innovation notwithstanding, U.S. purpose remains unchanged and like that of every nation: to survive, to prosper if possible. Yet the effort by generations of Americans (variously naive, self-serving, contradictory) to transcend this narrow understanding has produced high drama as well as glimmerings of a more decent political life. As applicable to this day and to this study as to his own, W.E.B. Du Bois published these lines in 1935: "Nations reel and stagger on their way; they make hideous mistakes; they commit frightful wrongs; they do great and beautiful things." In this volume Mayers gives voice to a range of people who have acted on the political scene--the powerful but also the marginalized, the vanquished, the dissenting--to show how Americans of all stripes and persuasions have flavored the national discourse. Wars and Peace reacquaints readers with people whose eloquence, passion, and even wrongheadedness, gave texture to the debates of their times.
Synopsis
A look at the way Americans envision our relationships to other countries from the close of the Civil War until today.
Library Journal
Boston University history and political science professor Mayers examines the supporting ideologies surrounding U.S. foreign policy from the Civil War to the present. He gives particular emphasis to the Civil War itself, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War era. The picture offered is often a mixture of high ideals followed by the failure to bring these ideals to full fruition in the give-and-take of reality. In addition to providing an interesting historical summary, Mayers's book also offers valuable insights into the current state of U.S. foreign policy. It is well written and argued and can be generally recommended for most libraries.--Scott K. Wright, Univ. of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN