Isolationism
A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself from the World
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
The first book to tell the full story of American isolationism, from the founding era through the Trump presidency.
In his Farewell Address of 1796, President George Washington admonished the young nation "to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." Isolationism thereafter became one of the most influential political trends in American history. From the founding era until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States shunned strategic commitments abroad, making only brief detours during the Spanish-American War and World War I. Amid World War II and the Cold War, Americans abandoned isolationism; they tried to run the world rather than run away from it. But isolationism is making a comeback as Americans tire of foreign entanglement. In this definitive and magisterial analysis-the first book to tell the fascinating story of isolationism across the arc of American history-Charles Kupchan explores the enduring connection between the isolationist impulse and the American experience. He also refurbishes isolationism's reputation, arguing that it constituted dangerous delusion during the 1930s, but afforded the nation clear strategic advantages during its ascent.
Kupchan traces isolationism's staying power to the ideology of American exceptionalism. Strategic detachment from the outside world was to protect the nation's unique experiment in liberty, which America would then share with others through the power of example. Since 1941, the United States has taken a much more interventionist approach to changing the world. But it has overreached, prompting Americans to rediscover the allure of nonentanglement and an America First foreign policy. The United States is hardly destined to return to isolationism, yet a strategic pullback is inevitable. Americans now need to find the middle ground between doing too much and doing too little.
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Kupchan (The End of the American Era), a professor of international relations at Georgetown University, offers an erudite and evenhanded study of the isolationist impulse in American foreign policy. Beginning with President George Washington's 1796 farewell address advising the nation to steer clear of foreign entanglements, the idea of maintaining American independence served the country well during its economic ascent, according to Kupchan. He links "isolationist logic" to the notion of American exceptionalism and explains how the subjugation of Native Americans and the seizure of lands from Mexico in the 19th century was seen not as expansionism, but as the fulfillment of America's "messianic mission." Despite U.S. involvement in WWI, isolationism only fell out of favor after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Kupchan writes, and the U.S. has since overextended itself in foreign wars and alliances, sowing discord at home and abroad. Talk of "America First" has reemerged in the Trump era, but Kupchan disagrees with those who want to pull the U.S. out of "major strategic positions around the world," arguing instead for "selective engagement and judicious retrenchment." He marshals a wealth of evidence to support his arguments and ranges confidently across more than 200 years of American history. Policy makers and foreign affairs scholars will want to take note.
