At the dawn of the twenty-first century, three ideas dominate the world: peace as the preferred basis for relations between and among different countries, democracy as the optimal way to organize political life, and free markets as the indispensable vehicle for the creation of wealth. While not practiced everywhere, these ideas have--for the first time in history--no serious rivals. And although the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were terrible and traumatic, they did not "change everything," as so many commentators have asserted. Instead, these events served to illuminate even more brightly the world that emerged from the end of the Cold War. In The Ideas That Conquered the World, Michael Mandelbaum describes the uneven spread (over the past two centuries) of peace, democracy, and free markets from the wealthy and powerful countries of the world's core, where they originated, to the weaker and poorer countries of its periphery. And he assesses the prospects for these ideas in the years to come, giving particular attention to the United States, which bears the greatest responsibility for protecting and promoting them, and to Russia, China, and the Middle East, in which they are not well established and where their fate will affect the rest of the world. Drawing on history, politics, and economics, this incisive book provides a clear and original guide to the main trends of the twenty-first century, from globalization to terrorism, through the perspective of one of our era's most provocative thinkers.
In The Rise and Fall of Peace on Earth, Michael Mandelbaum examines the peaceful quarter century after the end of the Cold War. He describes how the period came about and why it ended, arguing that individual countries overturned peaceful, political, and military arrangements in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, thereby affecting the rest of the world. He also probes prospects for the revival of peace in the future and stresses the importance of democracy and civil liberties across borders.
In That Used to Be Us, the blockbuster Michael Mandelbaum wrote with Thomas L. Friedman, the authors analyzed the challenges America faces, including globalization, and described a path to recovering America’s greatness. In his widely and well reviewed The Road to Global Prosperity, Mandelbaum, one of America’s leading authorities on international affairs, looks at whether our optimism about the world’s economic future is justified in view of the financial meltdown of 2008, still being felt; Europe’s troubled currency; the slowing growth of China and other emerging nations. He concludes that while the global economy does face major challenges in the years ahead, there are compelling reasons to believe for optimism. Mandelbaum says that globalization is both irreversible and a positive force for the United States and the world. As technology and free markets expand and national leaders realize that their political power rests on delivering prosperity, countries will cooperate more. As more nations connect, their economies will grow. As immigration increases, as more money crosses borders, and as more countries emerge from poverty, individuals and societies around the world will benefit. The Road to Global Prosperity illuminates the crucial issues that will determine the economic future. Mandelbaum makes a persuasive case for optimism as well as offering a concrete, practical guide to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
The end of the Cold War led to a dramatic and fundamental change in the foreign policy of the United States. In Mission Failure, Michael Mandelbaum, one of America's leading foreign-policy thinkers, provides an original, provocative, and definitive account of the ambitious but deeply flawed post-Cold War efforts to promote American values and American institutions throughout the world. In the decades before the Cold War ended the United States, like virtually every other country throughout history, used its military power to defend against threats to important American international interests or to the American homeland itself. When the Cold War concluded, however, it embarked on military interventions in places where American interests were not at stake. Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo had no strategic or economic importance for the United States, which intervened in all of them for purely humanitarian reasons. Each such intervention led to efforts to transform the local political and economic systems. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, launched in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, turned into similar missions of transformation. None of them achieved its aims. Mission Failure describes and explains how such missions came to be central to America's post-Cold War foreign policy, even in relations with China and Russia in the early 1990s and in American diplomacy in the Middle East, and how they all failed. Mandelbaum shows how American efforts to bring peace, national unity, democracy, and free-market economies to poor, disorderly countries ran afoul of ethnic and sectarian loyalties and hatreds and foundered as well on the absence of the historical experiences and political habits, skills, and values that Western institutions require. The history of American foreign policy in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall is, he writes, "the story of good, sometimes noble, and thoroughly American intentions coming up against the deeply embedded, often harsh, and profoundly un-American realities of places far from the United States. In this encounter the realities prevailed.
In this incisive new book, Michael Mandelbaum argues that the era marked by an expansive American foreign policy is coming to an end. During the seven decades from the U.S. entry into World War II in 1941 to the present, economic constraints rarely limited what the United States did in the world. Now that will change. The country's soaring deficits, fueled by the huge costs of the financial crash and of its entitlement programs Social Security and Medicarewill compel a more modest American international presence.In assessing the consequences of this new, less expensive foreign policy, Mandelbaum, one of America's leading foreign policy experts, describes the policies the United States will have to discontinue, assesses the potential threats from China, Russia, and Iran, and recommends a new policy, centered on a reduction in the nation's dependence on foreign oil, which can do for America and the world in the twenty-first century what the containment of the Soviet Union did in the twentieth.
In The Titans of the Twentieth Century, the eminent scholar Michael Mandelbaum provides a group portrait of the most influential political figures of the twentieth century: Woodrow Wilson, Lenin, Hitler, Churchill, FDR, Ghandi, David Ben-Gurion, and Mao. Mandelbaum's selective principle is a combination of novelty, political power, geopolitical importance, and long-term influence. For better or worse, these are the men who did more than anyone else to shape the world that we live in today. Through their lives, this book provides a unique window into the political forces that shaped the twentieth century and laid the groundwork for the twenty-first.
How does the United States use its enormous power in the world? In The Case for Goliath, Michael Mandelbaum offers a surprising answer: The United States furnishes to other countries the services that governments provide within the countries they govern. Mandelbaum explains how this role came about despite the fact that neither the United States nor any other country sought to establish it. He describes the contributions that American power makes to global security and prosperity, the shortcomings of American foreign policy, and how other countries have come to accept, resent, and exert influence on America's global role. And he assesses the prospects for the continuation of this role, which depends most importantly on whether the American public is willing to pay for it. Written with Mandelbaum's characteristic blend of clarity, wit, and profound understanding of America and the world, The Case for Goliath offers a fresh and surprising approach to an issue that obsesses citizens and policymakers the world over, as well as a major statement on the foreign policy issues confronting the American people today.
New interpretations of historic episodes in international relations result from a fresh analysis of national security policies and the demands and constraints imposed upon their development by the international system.
While specifically defining many of the technical terms that have made this subject so inaccessible, Michael Mandelbaum discusses the weapons systems and nuclear doctrine of both the United States and the Soviet Union along with their predicted impact on the future of the arms race.
The last thirty years have witnessed one of the most remarkable developments in history: the rapid rise of democracy around the world. In 1900, only ten countries were democracies and by 1975 there were only 30. Today, 119 of the world's 190 countries have adopted this form of government, and it is by far the most celebrated and prestigious one. How did democracy acquire its good name? Why did it spread so far and so fast? Why do important countries remain undemocratic? And why do efforts to export democracy so often fail and even make conditions worse? In Democracy's Good Name, Michael Mandelbaum, one of America's leading foreign policy thinkers, answers these questions. He surveys the methods and risks of promoting democracy, and analyzes the prospects for the establishment of democratic governments in Russia, China, and the Arab world. Written in Mandelbaum's clear and accessible style, Democracy's Good Name presents a lucid, comprehensive, and surprising account of the history and future of democracy from the American Revolution to the occupation of Iraq.
In The Meaning of Sports, Michael Mandelbaum, a sports fan who is also one of the nation's preeminent foreign policy thinkers, examines America's century-long love affair with team sports. In keeping with his reputation for writing about big ideas in an illuminating and graceful way, he shows how sports respond to deep human needs; describes the ways in which baseball, football and basketball became national institutions and how they reached their present forms; and covers the evolution of rules, the rise and fall of the most successful teams, and the historical significance of the most famous and influential figures such as Babe Ruth, Vince Lombardi, and Michael Jordan. Whether he is writing about baseball as the agrarian game, football as similar to warfare, basketball as the embodiment of post-industrial society, or the moral havoc created by baseball's designated hitter rule, Mandelbaum applies the full force of his learning and wit to subjects about which so many Americans care passionately: the games they played in their youth and continue to follow as adults. By offering a fresh and unconventional perspective on these games, The Meaning of Sports makes for fascinating and rewarding reading both for fans and newcomers.
Independence, 1765-1788 -- In the shadow of the French Revolution, 1788-1815 -- The continental republic, 1815-1865 -- Great-power debut, 1865-1914 -- The offshore balancer, 1914-1933 -- The arsenal of democracy, 1933-1945 -- The contest of systems, 1945-1953 -- War improbable, peace impossible -- A superpower dies in bed -- The new world order, 1990-2001 -- Back to the future, 2001-2015.
How have nuclear weapons affected the way countries deal with one another? The Nuclear Revolution answers this question by comparing the nuclear age with previous periods of international history, from the fifth century B.C. to the twentieth century. The Nuclear Revolution offers insightful and provocative perspectives on the Soviet-American nuclear arms race, comparing it with the Anglo-German naval rivalry before World War I and with modern tariff competitions. The work also compares the advent of nuclear weapons with the two other modern revolutions in warfare: Napoleon's military innovations and the industrial warfare of World War I. It assesses the impact of nuclear armaments on the balance of power, alliances, and the behaviour of national leaders. Also included is an analysis of the differences between nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. The concuding chapter, bringing together ideas from history, religion, and psychology, explores the effects that the threat of nuclear annihilation has on everyday life.
This book surveys Russia's relations with the world since 1992 and assesses the future prospect for the foreign policy of Europe's largest country. Together these essays offer an authoritative summary and assessment of Russia's relations with its neighbors and with the rest of the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Robert Legvold, surveying the sweeping changes that have taken place in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union, contends that genuine integration into East Asia requires the kind of economic changes that have just begun in Russia and will take years to complete. David Lampton, in his chapter on China, examines the Chinese leadership's policy of military detente and economic cooperation with the other three powers in order to sustain the remarkable economic performance of the last two decades. In his chapter on Japan, Michael Mochizuki discusses the uncertainty that the end of the Soviet-American rivalry has produced in Japan's domestic politics and foreign policy. Michael Mandelbaum discusses the bilateral relationships between the United States and the three other countries and the differing issues that loom large for each: security, economics, and human rights.
America is in trouble. We face four major challenges on which our future depends, and we are failing to meet them—and if we delay any longer, soon it will be too late for us to pass along the American dream to future generations. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, offer both a wake-up call and a call to collective action. They analyze the four challenges we face—globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and our pattern of excessive energy consumption—and spell out what we need to do now to sustain the American dream and preserve American power in the world. They explain how the end of the Cold War blinded the nation to the need to address these issues seriously, and how China's educational successes, industrial might, and technological prowess remind us of the ways in which "that used to be us." They explain how the paralysis of our political system and the erosion of key American values have made it impossible for us to carry out the policies the country urgently needs. And yet Friedman and Mandelbaum believe that the recovery of American greatness is within reach. They show how America's history, when properly understood, offers a five-part formula for prosperity that will enable us to cope successfully with the challenges we face. They offer vivid profiles of individuals who have not lost sight of the American habits of bold thought and dramatic action. They propose a clear way out of the trap into which the country has fallen, a way that includes the rediscovery of some of our most vital traditions and the creation of a new thirdparty movement to galvanize the country. That Used to Be Us is both a searching exploration of the American condition today and a rousing manifesto for American renewal.
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