What would the world look like if America were to reduce its role as a global leader in order to focus all its energies on solving its problems at home? And is America really in decline? Robert Kagan, New York Times best-selling author and one of the country’s most influential strategic thinkers, paints a vivid, alarming picture of what the world might look like if the United States were truly to let its influence wane.
Although Kagan asserts that much of the current pessimism is misplaced, he warns that if America were indeed to commit “preemptive superpower suicide,” the world would see the return of war among rising nations as they jostle for power; the retreat of democracy around the world as Vladimir Putin’s Russia and authoritarian China acquire more clout; and the weakening of the global free-market economy, which the United States created and has supported for more than sixty years. We’ve seen this before—in the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the European order in World War I.
Potent, incisive, and engaging, The World America Made is a reminder that the American world order is worth preserving, and America dare not decline.
Review
“At once a robust defense of the role America plays in world affairs and a determined rejection of the ‘myth’ that America is in decline.” —Financial Times
“Kagan’s writing bristles with insights and ideas.” —Foreign Affairs
“An extended and convincing argument against the thesis that there is anything inevitable about American decline.” —Commentary
“Accessible, thought-provoking and extraordinary. . . . Robert Kagan has both the foreign policy credentials and political street cred to know from whence he speaks. . . . A book about such a grand topic as global strategy runs two risks. First is making definitive assertions in the face of enormous complexity. . . . The second is imparting too much meaning from historical events. . . . However, Mr. Kagan avoids both traps. He skillfully reasons from a wide breadth of compelling facts that from the end of World War II to today, for better (he believes) or worse, and often with great ambivalence, America has raised the living standards of the world while helping democracy grow and flourish and the democratic world should and will likely want to keep it that way.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“The book makes the case that the nation’s decline is a myth, a reaction to the financial crisis of 2008 rather than to any genuine geopolitical shifts.” —The New York Times
“These ideas struck a chord with a President accused of leading a great American retreat.” —TIME
“Kagan grabs the reader’s attention from page one. . . . Kagan makes a powerful point: If America were to make a serious effort to disengage in world affairs, the world quickly would devolve into a much more scary and dangerous place.” —The Augusta Chronicle
“[Kagan] seems to care less about partisanship than about ideas, particularly his advocacy for a powerful American role in the world. . . . The virtue of Kagan’s book is that his ideas and logic are so clearly laid out that readers can see where they agree or disagree.” —The Washington Post
“Kagan paints with a broad brush, sprinkling a memorable metaphor here, a striking simile there . . . He provides a compelling demonstration that whether it’s protecting the sea lanes vital for free trade or nudging societies toward democracy, the world stands a better chance with America in prime position than with China or Russia in the lead.” —The New York Times Book Review
“[Marco] Rubio’s foreign-policy views have evidently been recently shaped by a reading of Robert Kagan’s The World America Made, a much-discussed refutation of the now-popular notion of American decline. As a Romney advisor who has penned bedside reading for President Barack Obama, Kagan could plausibly claim to be the most prominently cited writer in Washington right now.” —Foreign Policy Magazine
“Intelligent, cogent, and timely.” —Publishers Weekly
“Serious, scholarly . . . [These are] ideas expressed clearly and consicely.” —David Ignatius, Washington Post Writers Group
“The foreign policy blueprint for the next Republican president.” —Senator Marco Rubio
“Kagan grabs the reader’s attention from page one . . . He makes a powerful point: If America were to make a serious effort to disengage in world affairs, the world quickly would devolve into a much more scary and dangerous place . . . If you have time to read just one book, I suggest Kagan’s.” —Major General Perry Smith
“Magisterial . . . It’s a small book, it’s a great book.” —Bill Bennett
“Very important . . . A wonderful book.” —Hugh Hewitt
“A must-read.” —Lou Dobbs
About the Author
Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a columnist for The Washington Post. He is also the author of The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Dangerous Nation, Of Paradise and Power, and A Twilight Struggle. He served in the U.S. State Department from 1984 to 1988. He lives with his wife and two children.
What would the world look like if America were to reduce its role as a global leader in order to focus all its energies on solving its problems at home? And is America really in decline? Robert Kagan, New York Times best-selling author and one of the country’s most influential strategic thinkers, paints a vivid, alarming picture of what the world might look like if the United States were truly to let its influence wane.
Although Kagan asserts that much of the current pessimism is misplaced, he warns that if America were indeed to commit “preemptive superpower suicide,” the world would see the return of war among rising nations as they jostle for power; the retreat of democracy around the world as Vladimir Putin’s Russia and authoritarian China acquire more clout; and the weakening of the global free-market economy, which the United States created and has supported for more than sixty years. We’ve seen this before—in the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the European order in World War I.
Potent, incisive, and engaging, The World America Made is a reminder that the American world order is worth preserving, and America dare not decline.
Review
“At once a robust defense of the role America plays in world affairs and a determined rejection of the ‘myth’ that America is in decline.”
—Financial Times
“Kagan’s writing bristles with insights and ideas.”
—Foreign Affairs
“An extended and convincing argument against the thesis that there is anything inevitable about American decline.”
—Commentary
“Accessible, thought-provoking and extraordinary. . . . Robert Kagan has both the foreign policy credentials and political street cred to know from whence he speaks. . . . A book about such a grand topic as global strategy runs two risks. First is making definitive assertions in the face of enormous complexity. . . . The second is imparting too much meaning from historical events. . . . However, Mr. Kagan avoids both traps. He skillfully reasons from a wide breadth of compelling facts that from the end of World War II to today, for better (he believes) or worse, and often with great ambivalence, America has raised the living standards of the world while helping democracy grow and flourish and the democratic world should and will likely want to keep it that way.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“The book makes the case that the nation’s decline is a myth, a reaction to the financial crisis of 2008 rather than to any genuine geopolitical shifts.”
—The New York Times
“These ideas struck a chord with a President accused of leading a great American retreat.”
—TIME
“Kagan grabs the reader’s attention from page one. . . . Kagan makes a powerful point: If America were to make a serious effort to disengage in world affairs, the world quickly would devolve into a much more scary and dangerous place.”
—The Augusta Chronicle
“[Kagan] seems to care less about partisanship than about ideas, particularly his advocacy for a powerful American role in the world. . . . The virtue of Kagan’s book is that his ideas and logic are so clearly laid out that readers can see where they agree or disagree.”
—The Washington Post
“Kagan paints with a broad brush, sprinkling a memorable metaphor here, a striking simile there . . . He provides a compelling demonstration that whether it’s protecting the sea lanes vital for free trade or nudging societies toward democracy, the world stands a better chance with America in prime position than with China or Russia in the lead.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“[Marco] Rubio’s foreign-policy views have evidently been recently shaped by a reading of Robert Kagan’s The World America Made, a much-discussed refutation of the now-popular notion of American decline. As a Romney advisor who has penned bedside reading for President Barack Obama, Kagan could plausibly claim to be the most prominently cited writer in Washington right now.”
—Foreign Policy Magazine
“Intelligent, cogent, and timely.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Serious, scholarly . . . [These are] ideas expressed clearly and consicely.”
—David Ignatius, Washington Post Writers Group
“The foreign policy blueprint for the next Republican president.”
—Senator Marco Rubio
“Kagan grabs the reader’s attention from page one . . . He makes a powerful point: If America were to make a serious effort to disengage in world affairs, the world quickly would devolve into a much more scary and dangerous place . . . If you have time to read just one book, I suggest Kagan’s.”
—Major General Perry Smith
“Magisterial . . . It’s a small book, it’s a great book.”
—Bill Bennett
“Very important . . . A wonderful book.”
—Hugh Hewitt
“A must-read.”
—Lou Dobbs
About the Author
Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a columnist for The Washington Post. He is also the author of The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Dangerous Nation, Of Paradise and Power, and A Twilight Struggle. He served in the U.S. State Department from 1984 to 1988. He lives with his wife and two children.