The Global Republic: America's Inadvertent Rise to World Power

About this book

For decades the United States has been the most dominant player on the worlds stage. The countrys economic authority its globally forceful foreign policy and its leading position in international institutions tend to be seen as the result of a long-standing deliberate drive to become a major global force. Furthermore it has become widely accepted that American exceptionalismthe belief that America is a country like no other in historyhas been at the root of many of the countrys political military and global moves. Frank Ninkovich disagrees. One of the preeminent intellectual historians of our time Ninkovich delivers here his most ambitious and sweeping book to date. He argues that historically the United States has been driven not by a belief in its destiny or its special character but rather by a need to survive the forces of globalization. He builds the powerful case that American foreign policy has long been based on and entangled in questions of global engagement while also showing that globalization itself has always been distinct fromand sometimes in direct conflict withwhat we call international society. In the second half of the twentieth century the United States unexpectedly stumbled into the role of global policeman and was forced to find ways to resolve international conflicts that did not entail nuclear warfare. The United Statess decisions were based less in notions of exceptionalism and more in a need to preserve and expand a flourishing global society that had become essential to the American way of life. Sure to be controversial The Global Republic compellingly and provocatively counters some of the deepest and most common misconceptions about Americas history and its place in the world.