To Lead the World
Also available:
HardbackPrice:
$17.95 (03)Description
U.S. national security policy is at a critically important crossroads. The Bush Doctrine of unilateralism, pre-emptive war, and the imposition of democracy by force has proven disastrous. The United States now finds itself vilified abroad, weakened at home, and bogged down in a seemingly endless and unwinnable war.In To Lead the World , Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro bring together eleven of America's most esteemed writers and thinkers to offer concrete, historically grounded suggestions for how America can regain its standing in the world and use its power more wisely than it has during the Bush years. Best-selling authors such as David Kennedy, Niall Ferguson, Robert Kagan, Francis Fukuyama, and Samantha Power address such issues as how the U.S. can regain its respect in the world, respond to the biggest threats now facing the country, identify reasonable foreign policy goals, manage the growing debt burden, achieve greater national security, and successfully engage a host of other problems left unsolved and in many cases exacerbated by the Bush Doctrine. Representing a wide range of perspectives, the writers gathered here place the current foreign-policy predicament firmly in the larger context of American and world history and draw upon realistic appraisals of both the strengths and the limits of American power. They argue persuasively that the kind of leadership that made the United States a great--and greatly admired--nation in the past can be revitalized to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Written by prize-winning authors and filled with level-headed, far-sighted, and achievable recommendations, To Lead the World will serve as a primary source of political wisdom in the post-Bush era and will add immeasurably to the policy debates surrounding the 2008 presidential election.
Reviews
"An able and diverse set of analysts propose strategies for American leadership after the Bush years. This would make interesting reading for the next president!"--Joseph S. Nye, University Distinguished Service Professor, Harvard University and author of The Powers to Lead
"Plenty of lively debate and rich food for thought."--Publishers Weekly
"If you have to choose only one book to read on American foreign policy in 2008, this should be it. A superb group of scholars and practitioners have crystallized the basic strategic choices and policy options facing a new administration. They disagree sharply among themselves, but these are exactly the debates that Americans, and people around the world, should be having."--Anne-Marie Slaughter, co-director of Princeton Project on National Security, Princeton University
"A timely, readable and useful book, for policymakers and citizens alike. Leffler and Legro have assembled just the right thinkers, with just the right degree of diversity in their views, to address the major issues of our time and the crucial question of how the U.S. can regain its leadership of the international community."--Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution
"With U.S. foreign policy in shambles and with even more crises on the horizon, the next president has to actually read this book. The only chance of our coming out of the next several years in one piece is to have a good strategy, and these challenging essays tell the president what his/her strategic choices will be."--Leslie H. Gelb, former New York Times columnist
"Plenty of lively debate and rich food for thought."--Publishers Weekly
"If you have to choose only one book to read on American foreign policy in 2008, this should be it. A superb group of scholars and practitioners have crystallized the basic strategic choices and policy options facing a new administration. They disagree sharply among themselves, but these are exactly the debates that Americans, and people around the world, should be having."--Anne-Marie Slaughter, co-director of Princeton Project on National Security, Princeton University
"An unusually interesting and useful collection of essays on possible directions for U.S. foreign policy under new administration... [by] some of today's most important and cogent thinkers on U.S. foreign policy."--Foreign Affairs
About the Author(s)
Melvyn P. Leffler
is Edward Stettinius Professor of American History at the University of Virginia, and the author of For the Soul of Mankind
.
Jeffrey W. Legro
is Compton Professor of World Politics and Chair, Department of Politics at the University of Virginia and the author of Rethinking the World
.
