The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy

Description

For much of the twentieth century, Americans saw their nation as part of a shared Western civilization rooted in European Enlightenment ideals of liberty and self-government and the heritage of classical Greece and Rome. And for much of the century, a vision of Western liberty guided America's foreign affairs, from the crusades of the world wars to its strategic alliances with Europe in the Cold War against the Communist East. But today, other ideas drive American foreign policy: on one side, the pursuit of a universal 'liberal international order,' and on the other, the illiberal nationalism of 'America First.' In The Abandonment of the West, historian Michael Kimmage traces the West's rise and its decline in American foreign policy since the 1890s - and argues that reviving the West today is essential to fostering national unity and resisting new geopolitical threats.The roots of America's affinity for the West run deep, from the embrace of Columbus as a national hero to the neoclassical design of the nation's capital. After the First World War, despite Woodrow Wilson's failed efforts to persuade Americans to take up leadership of the West, American universities advanced new Western civilization curricula. By 1945, after the Second World War, the West was the dominant American foreign-policy concept. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy fostered the bipartisan project of saving the West from the Soviet East in the Cold War. Then this consensus unraveled. With the Vietnam War and the rights revolutions of the 1960s, the left raised new questions about the West's association with empire and white supremacy; American universities moved on to frameworks such as multiculturalism and ethnic studies. The right advanced a narrower, more religious vision of the West, almost as critical of liberals at home as it was of communists abroad. After the end of the Cold War, presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama increasingly avoided invoking the West, seeking instead to create liberal democracies everywhere. Donald Trump has broadly rejected Western ideals of liberty, instead embracing authoritarian leaders and denigrating Western institutions such as NATO.The Abandonment of the West concludes with a defense of the West as a framework for American foreign affairs today. Despite its past shortcomings, Kimmage argues, reviving the West is essential to restoring a foreign policy rooted in liberty and self-governance and resisting the authoritarianism of Russia and China. Here at home, a revitalized and expansive West can offer an inspiring alternative to identity politics on the right and the left. Sweeping and full of rich insights, The Abandonment of the West is an urgent portrait of modern America's search for identity and its emergence as a superpower, reveali

Michael Kimmage is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America, specializing in the history of the United States, Europe, and Russia. A member of the secretary's policy planning staff at the US Department of State from 2014 to 2016 and the author of two books, he lives with his wife and two daughters in Washington, DC.

The Abandonment of the West meticulously chronicles a tragic phenomenon as only an observer of his caliber can. A fascinating wakeup call and a call for action for America to revive the beautiful vision we invented.--John Kerry, United States Secretary of State, 2013 to 2017 In this disturbing and important book, a first rate intellectual historian, who has also served in government, reflects on the decline of the idea that once gave coherence to American foreign policy: the West. Michael Kimmage's range of learning and contemporary insight is remarkable, and his exploration of how the West fell victim, in part, to its own success is not a counsel of despair but rather a call to considered action.--Eliot A. Cohen, Dean, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Michael Kimmage has written a deeply thoughtful, sensitive book that will confound the expectations of readers expecting a triumphalist defense of 'the West.' On the contrary, Kimmage explores the many contradictions underpinning the historical evolution of the very concept of the West, particularly for the 'post-Columbian Republic' that the United States has become. It is a book that rewards careful reading and reflection, one that I would recommend for students, scholars, and foreign policy advisers everywhere.--Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America This is an exceedingly important book and certainly one that would benefit all American readers who wonder how we arrived at our current status in an increasingly interconnected world.--Library Journal This is an intelligent, convincing, and highly readable account of one of the biggest ideas in American foreign policy: The West. With vivid examples, Kimmage shows how America's cultural affinity with a mythical 'Western civilization' first rose to the center of U.S. foreign policy in the late nineteenth century and why it triumphed during the Cold War. Since then, the idea of a mythical West has almost totally collapsed. Kimmage reveals why that is and how foreign policy leaders today can recuperate a new uniting idea to guide the United States in the years to come.--Caroline Winterer, William Robertson Coe Professor in History and American Studies, Stanford University To know where we stand, we must understand where we come from. In The Abandonment of the West, Michael Kimmage takes readers on a revealing journey through the history and influence of the idea of 'the West' on U.S. foreign policy. This is an important book for all those who want to better understand the complex and multifaceted relationship between the U.S. and Europe. Kimmage's work makes it clear what is at stake for us as Europeans when U.S. foreign policy abandons its relationship with the idea of the West. This is a wake-up call to Europe to promote the West-and not to give up its ideals.--SigmarGabriel, former German Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister for ForeignAffairs World War I, World War II, and the Cold War were all wars of East against West, but in the post-Cold War period, the idea of the West has lost its role within American foreign policy. It is the cultural changes within the American society rather than any geopolitical shifts that explain this change, argues Michael Kimmage, in his elegantly written and thoroughly researched new book.--Ivan Krastev, author of After Europe