Bracing and provocative, despite the tendentiousness and the uniformity of structure.
A set of scholarly responses to Henry Luce’s 1941 essay in his Life magazine, “The American Century.”
Editor Bacevich (International Relations and History/Boston Univ.; Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, 2010, etc.) provides the beginning and ending chapters in this collection of historical and analytical pieces that, combined, claim: there really wasn’t much of an American century; it was always an illusion, anyhow; it has been extraordinarily arrogant and purblind to believe that America was unlike other empires and that its way of life is suitable for the rest of the world. The pieces share a conventional academic structure, which eventually becomes tiresome: introduction, body, conclusion—don’t any of these notable contributors know how to frame an essay in a fresher, more engaging way? They also share an anti-imperialist, leftish slant that will allure some readers and alienate others. David M. Kennedy begins with an essay about American military power and our decision to put most of our chips on air power. Several contributors—Emily S. Rosenberg, Jeffrey A. Frieden and Eugene McCarraher—highlight economic aspects of the topic, variously attacking materialism, the arrogance of the business mind and the effects of globalization on the American economy and way of life. Others looks at the effects of immigration and race, historical antecedents (Manifest Destiny, the Truman Doctrine), military misadventures since World War II (Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq) and the influence of some significant players on the stage, among them Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, Randolph Bourne and Charles Beard. Many attack Republican administrations, though McCarraher has some sharp words for President Obama, sharper ones for Thomas J. Friedman.
Bracing and provocative, despite the tendentiousness and the uniformity of structure.Pub Date: March 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-674-06445-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A strongly argued defense of polyester.
Forget the bad music, embarrassing clothes, and sleazy sexuality: Schulman (History/Boston Univ.) is here to set the record straight on the disco decade.
After a preface that features an odd encomium of his own work (“It offers a rich, evocative portrait of the United States in the 1970s”), the author settles in to explore his thesis—i.e., “The Seventies transformed American economic and cultural life as much as, if not more than, the revolutions in manners and morals of the 1920s and the 1960s.” He begins with 1968, a year that witnessed assassinations, political unrest, and a surprising surge of support for George Wallace. He offers a devastating assessment of the Nixon presidency, but credits Nixon with the insight to recognize and exploit the shifts of political power taking place in the US (from the old North and Northeast to the new South and West). Schulman also assesses the demographic and intellectual forces that fractured the old “melting pot” consensus and created the now-pervasive notion that diversity is the highest social good. He also chronicles the emergence of the Christian right (“This parallel universe proved surprisingly vast”) and the rise of the New South. Schulman writes compassionately about Jimmy Carter—but recognizes his utter inability to lead the country. And, while he admits Reagan’s unquestioned contributions to the American resurgence, Schulman recognizes that “The Reagan recovery did little for working people.” Throughout the 1970s, Schulman maintains, there was a “southernization of American life” and a decline in social and political activism. The author devotes considerable attention to the popular culture (especially films, TV shows, and music) of the period, but he largely ignores serious literature and the other arts—and he is given to seeing much in little, as when he attributes great cultural importance to Evel Knievel’s farewell tour and to Billie Jean King’s whupping of the feckless Bobby Riggs.
A strongly argued defense of polyester.Pub Date: May 14, 2001
ISBN: 0-684-82814-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
A well-written, well-argued story of the Civil War in the West. McDonough (History/Auburn Univ.; The Limits of Glory, 1991) continues to explore underexamined aspects of the Civil War, this time the western theater, often thought of as a sidelight to the real scrap in the East. In McDonough's view, the western engagements were crucial in sealing the fate of the Confederacy. He sets the stage for his account of the Kentucky battles by outlining the Confederacy's perilous state in the spring of 1862. The fall in February of the Tennessee river forts Henry and Donelson effectively split the South geographically and led to the abandonment a week later of Nashville, the first Southern capital to capitulate. On April 6, federal and Confederate armies clashed at Shiloh Church with horrific loss of life. Claimed as a victory by the Southern commanding general, the battle failed to halt the federal advance and led to the removal of P.G.T. Beauregard, the hero of Fort Sumter and Bull Run, as commander of Confederate forces in the West. He was replaced by the scruffy Braxton Bragg, whose record at Shiloh was itself ambiguous. On April 7, the Union Navy captured Island No. 10 on the Mississippi, which paved the way for the fall 17 days later of New Orleans. The South still had an opportunity to snatch victory at a clash in central Kentucky at a small town called Perryville, where in October 22,000 federals fought 17,000 Confederates. Forced to retreat, Bragg had to give up his dream of retaking Kentucky. The war would drag on for 30 more months, but McDonough shows that Southern defeat was increasingly inevitable. As studies of the Civil War become more narrow in focus, it's refreshing to find a volume that has some sweep to it, using the war in and around Kentucky to encapsulate the entire conflict in the West.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-87049-847-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
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