Follies of Power: America's Unipolar Fantasy

by David P. Calleo

Overview

The imagination of America's political elites is dominated by a unipolar vision, according to which the world is dominated by the United States. But the real world is increasingly plural, and others instinctively fear and resist the American vision. Chapters 2 and 3 of this book look at the disastrous consequences of the vision at work - in the Middle East and in Europe. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 assess the limits of American power. Chapter 7 discusses the problems of order and coexistence in a world that is not unipolar but increasingly plural. It speculates on the possible contributions and likely fate of both 'Old America' and 'New Europe' as models for organizing the future. America's own constitutional equilibrium, David Calleo argues, increasingly requires friendly balancing from Europe. Both sides of the West must liberate their imaginations from past triumphs to face their responsibilities to the new world and to each other.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780511738449
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/20/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	625 KB

About the Author

David P. Calleo is currently a professor at The Johns Hopkins University. He has previously taught at Brown University and Yale University and was a visiting professor at Columbia. He has also held the position of Consultant to the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. His previous books include Rethinking Europe's Future (2001), The Bankrupting of America: How the Federal Deficit Is Impoverishing the Nation (1992), Beyond American Hegemony: The Future of the Western Alliance (1987), The Imperious Economy (1982), The German Problem Reconsidered (1978), America and the World Political Economy (1973), The Atlantic Fantasy (1970), Britain's Future (1968), The American Political System (1968), Coleridge and the Idea of a Modern Nation State (1966), and Europe's Future (1965).

Table of Contents

Part I. Geopolitical Illusions and their Consequences: 1. The unipolar fantasy; 2. Hubris in the Middle East; 3. The broken West; Part II. The Nature and Limits of American Power: 4. Assessing America's soft and hard power; 5. Feeding American power: the economic base; 6. Power and legitimacy among Western states; Part III. World Order in the New Century: 7. American and European models.

Editorial Reviews

David Calleo is one of our wisest commentators in international affairs. In Follies of Power he offers, just in time for a new American administration, a provocative new approach to American foreign policy, one that draws on his deep knowledge of American, European, and global history.”
Michael Mandelbaum, author, Democracy’s Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government

“With rare courage, insight and breadth of vision, David Calleo dissects the megalomaniac US national illusions that led the Bush administration to disaster but also endangers that of Obama. His vitally important work calls not for a tactical shift in US foreign policy but for a completely new way of looking at the world.”
Anatol Lieven, King's College London and the New America Foundation

“Once in a rare while a book arrives that cuts through the confusions and deceptions of a foreign policy gone dangerously awry. This is that book.”
Ronald Steel, Professor of International Relations, University of Southern California

"The book is a wide-ranging tour de force that covers geopolitical analysis, international economics, political theory, and global politics. The footnotes constitute a virtual bibliography on recent and contemporary international relations...For advanced students of international relations."
CHOICE, J.P. Dunn, Converse College

From the Publisher