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  1. Home
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  3. National Security and Core Values in American History
  • Cited by 3
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2012
Print publication year:
2009
Online ISBN:
9780511811784
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511811784
Subjects:
American History: General Interest, Area Studies, American Studies, History, Politics and International Relations, International Relations and International Organisations
Information

Book description

There is no book quite like National Security and Core Values in American History. Drawing upon themes from the whole of the nation's past, William O. Walker III presents a new interpretation of the history of American exceptionalism, that is, of the basic values and liberties that have given the United States its very identity. He argues that a political economy of expansion and the quest for security led American leaders after 1890 to equate prosperity and safety with global engagement. In so doing, they developed and clung to what Walker calls the 'security ethos.' Expressed in successive grand strategies – Wilsonian internationalism, global containment, and strategic globalism – the security ethos ultimately damaged the values citizens cherish most and impaired popular participation in public affairs. Most important, it led to the abuse of executive authority after September 11, 2001, by the administration of President George W. Bush.

Reviews

'In the tradition of William Appleman Williams, National Security and Core Values represents a broad and provocative interpretation of America's role abroad since its founding over three centuries ago. U.S. leaders, William Walker contends, abandoned the nation's core values, such as republican virtue, in the pursuit of national security, which in reality became aggressive expansion and even empire. Walker offers an intellectual tour de force that shows a deep understanding of foreign relations and the domestic causes and consequences of U.S. actions abroad.'

Robert Buzzanco - University of Houston

'Drawing from his masterful big picture of U.S. global expansionism over 400 years, and especially the past century, Walker clearly explains how Americans’ unexamined belief that their own supposed exceptionalism (in both their economics and politics) propelled that expansionism – which climaxed with the tragic failures in the post-1960s era, particularly those of the George W. Bush administration.'

Walter LaFeber - Cornell University

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