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The soaring eagle

Revisiting the history of US foreign policy
by
April 2023, no. 452

The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy: Weak power, great power, superpower, hyperpower by Michael Mandelbaum

Oxford University Press, £26.99 hb, 512 pp

The soaring eagle

Revisiting the history of US foreign policy
by
April 2023, no. 452
An American shell casing factory c.1918 (akg images/Alamy)

Michael Mandelbaum’s book The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy is intended as another instalment, the author argues (quoting Pieter Geyl), in history’s ‘argument without end’. Historians of US foreign policy have long been engaged in their own particular argument – mostly, a competition over naming rights. In the most prestigious instalments – and Mandelbaum’s contribution is certainly one of those – the argument is not so much over the substance of history, but over its categorisation.

Mandelbaum’s contribution, in this regard, is what he describes as a ‘new framework’ for the history of American foreign policy. Mandelbaum breaks that history into four ascending temporal categories: the first, when the United States was a ‘Weak Power’, covers 1765–1865, and includes the road to independence, the American Revolution, and the Civil War. The second, when the US is described as a ‘Great Power,’ covers 1865–1945, and includes World Wars I and II. The third, ‘Superpower’, covers 1945–90 and the duration of the Cold War. Finally, the United States’ reign as global ‘Hyper-power’ covers 1990–2015, and includes the rise of the so-called New World Order, the Gulf Wars, and the War on Terror.

These categories are indeed a ‘new framework’ for the history of the United States in the world. They are convincing and logical. They are also entirely uncontroversial and conventional. Perhaps more importantly, Mandelbaum’s new framework is representative of that ‘argument without end’ in US foreign policy history; a rush to name, to categorise, that is less scholarly than an attempt both to make abstract and to justify the violent, material consequences of the exercise of American power and the ideologies that drive it.

The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy: Weak power, great power, superpower, hyperpower

The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy: Weak power, great power, superpower, hyperpower

by Michael Mandelbaum

Oxford University Press, £26.99 hb, 512 pp

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Comment (1)

  • Nice one. Yes, more humility when confronted with the appalling statistics that follow from actions is the pathway to something better. Ultimately, the low value we place on a single human life is causative. With its roots in our ultimately meaningless existence, it is difficult to find a cure, but we are morally bound to continue to strive to do so (and yes, the absurdity of the latter statement where I construct a 'morality' out of thin air is apparent).
    Posted by Patrick Hockey
    31 March 2023

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