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  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. What America Owes the World
  • Cited by 37
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2010
Print publication year:
1998
Online ISBN:
9780511666810
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511666810
Subjects:
Area Studies, American History after 1945, American Studies, History, Politics and International Relations, International Relations and International Organisations
Information

Book description

For two hundred years, Americans have believed that they have an obligation to improve the lot of humanity. This belief has consistently shaped US foreign policy. Yet within this consensus, two schools of thought have contended: the 'exemplarist' school (Brands' term) which holds that what America chiefly owes the world is the benign example of a well-functioning democracy, and the 'vindicationist' school which argues that force must sometimes supplement a good example. In this book, H. W. Brands traces the evolution of these two schools as they emerged in the thinking and writing of the most important public thinkers of the last two centuries. This book, first published in 1998, is both an intellectual and moral history of US foreign policy and a guide to the fundamental question of America's relations with the rest of the world - a question more pressing than ever in the confusion that has succeeded the Cold War: What does America owe the world?

Reviews

‘ … a fascinating … effort at a different kind of analysis of US foreign policy. Brand also covers new ground by writing, not a historical analysis, but an intellenctual and even moral history of US foreign policy.’

Source: The Times Literary Supplement

'The book is a welcome addition to the literature on the subject.'

Source: International Studies

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