A provocative, carefully reasoned argument, anathema to politicians as disparate as Barack Obama and Rand Paul.
In his first book, the Pulitzer Prize–winning foreign affairs columnist for the Wall Street Journal surveys the tumultuous international scene and calls for America to do what great nations have always done: Lead.
By any objective measure, writes Stephens, the United States is not in decline. We’ll be the world’s leading power for decades to come, the chief adversary for the likes of China, Russia and Iran, and “the preferred target for any ambitious terrorist group.” For the past 10 years, however, the nation has been in retreat, shrinking from international responsibilities. In this mostly persuasive polemic, the author outlines the persistent tension in our history—in both major parties—between the impulse to retire entirely from the world or to try to save it. Stephens rejects isolationism outright, but he also warns against the messianic foreign policies that have motivated presidents as different as Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush. Instead, he calls for America to accept a much more pedestrian, if absolutely necessary, role: to keep order. He realizes that war-weary, recession-battered Americans won’t want to hear it, but necessity obliges us to resume the burden we shouldered during the Cold War as the world’s policeman. This middle course—America as the world’s “stop-and-frisk” cop (and Stephens is fully aware of the opprobrium his argument will generate)—dispenses with fanciful notions of redeeming the world, of winning hearts and minds, in favor of more modest, still difficult, aims: shaping behavior of would-be foes, deterring our enemies, acting forthrightly in our self-interest, and seeking incremental rather than transformational change. Fending off international disorder, he concedes, will require increased defense spending and wider deployment of more assets for the protection of our friends. More than anything, halting our retreat requires a political will currently not much in evidence.
A provocative, carefully reasoned argument, anathema to politicians as disparate as Barack Obama and Rand Paul.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1591846628
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Sentinel
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
A heartfelt if somewhat unsurprising view of old age by the former president. Carter (Living Faith, 1996, etc.) succinctly evaluates the evolution and current status of federal policies concerning the elderly (including a balanced appraisal of the difficulties facing the Social Security system). He also meditates, while drawing heavily on autobiographical anecdotes, on the possibilities for exploration and intellectual and spiritual growth in old age. There are few lightning bolts to dazzle in his prescriptions (cultivate family ties; pursue the restorative pleasures of hobbies and socially minded activities). Yet the warmth and frankness of Carter’s remarks prove disarming. Given its brevity, the work is more of a call to senior citizens to reconsider how best to live life than it is a guide to any of the details involved.
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1998
ISBN: 0-345-42592-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
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