Better with them than without them
http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3D5381884
Jan 12th 2006
From The Economist print edition
America leads the world but does it rule it? And what should we feel
about being part of the empire, if it is one?
AS THE civilian death toll in Iraq continues to mount at an
undiminished rate, as the prison scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guant=E1namo
Bay continue to undermine any claim to a moral high ground, and as
America continues to be a deliberate laggard in adjusting its energy
policy to take account of global warming, it has become steadily harder
to find non-Americans willing to agree that on balance American
leadership makes the world a better place. That doesn't make the notion
wrong, however. Enter Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign-policy expert at
Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. His previous, very
compelling book, "The Ideas that Conquered the World" (2002),
explored how peace, democracy and free markets had become the world's
dominant ideals. Now, his new book argues that the country that stands
most squarely behind those aspirations, the United States, also acts as
a sort of surrogate government for the globe-and that we would all be
a lot worse off if it didn't.
The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the
21st Century
By Michael Mandelbaum
PublicAffairs; 283 pages; $26 and =A315.50
Michael Mandelbaum
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