Publishers Weekly
10/21/2019
America’s post–Cold War hubris bred economic discontent, military quagmires, moral chaos, and Donald Trump’s presidency, according to this sharp but unconvincing polemic. Boston University history professor Bacevich (The Limits of Power) posits a cohesive American identity built around middle-class prosperity, traditional morality, and anticommunism that lasted from WWII until the fall of the Berlin Wall. But after the Soviet Union’s collapse, he contends, America pursued a deluded agenda of economic globalization that yielded inequality and insecurity, world leadership ambitions that hatched indecisive “forever wars,” an unrealistic politics of “presidential supremacy,” and divisive cultural and moral upheavals that privileged individual autonomy over self-discipline and social obligation. Bacevich traces these developments in tart sketches of the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and of the resulting MAGA backlash. (He evenhandedly calls Trump “a noxious, venal blowhard” while disparaging the “protracted psychic orgasm” of the media’s obsession with him.) Bacevich’s assertion of a Cold War consensus is too pat—the era seethed with economic, military, and cultural conflict—and while his observations on the antagonism of modern-day politics sometimes hit home, they don’t break new ground or suggest a plausible way around America’s impasses. As a result, this righteous harangue fails to land many of its punches. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
"Offers tantalizing insights into how America's Cold War victory soured. . . . Most interesting." —The Economist
"Those unfamiliar with Bacevich’s work will be thrilled to encounter a first-rate thinker whose trenchant, objective, well-written analyses defy glib labeling . . . Highly recommended."
—CHOICE
“This engrossing recounting of the irresponsibility of America’s ruling class—aided and abetted by a citizenry grown complacent—clarifies the absurdities of the ascent of Trump. Like a Greek tragedian of old, Bacevich insistently discloses the discomfiting truth, showing how America’s self-congratulatory past has led to our wrenching present. Instead of illusions, he offers hope for a future free of self-deception, and points the way toward a newly responsible American civic life.”—Patrick J. Deneen, author of Why Liberalism Failed
“In The Age of Illusions, Andrew Bacevich offers a thoughtful, well-informed, and deeply humane critique of the self-absorbed grandiosity that dominates American foreign policy. He is one of a handful of sane voices contributing to the national conversation, and this is an indispensable book for our troubled times.”—Jackson Lears, author of Rebirth of a Nation
“This astute analysis of how the United States squandered its ‘cold war victory’ shows how the elites wasted the peace dividend with policies favoring global neoliberalism, military hegemony, and radical individualism, paralyzing Washington and delivering the oval office to a patently incompetent candidate.”—Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, Editor, Commonweal (retired)
“America’s most important challenges preceded Trump and will outlast him, Andrew Bacevich argues in this searing and powerful account of U.S. politics. This book will anger many readers, but it should also ignite overdue debate about permanent war enabled by public apathy, and economic inequality produced by globalized neoliberalism.”—Mary Dudziak, author of War Time
“As clear-headed as always, as honest as usual, Andrew Bacevich gives us a brilliant account of how the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War brought on not the end of history but an explosion of American hubris and an era of excess that blinded our political class to reality, stunted citizenship, undermined governance, and ignited angry disenchantment among great swaths of the public, enabling a real-life Captain Queeg to seize the helm, shouting ‘Full Steam Ahead’ toward monumental disaster. Unless, says Bacevich in his compelling conclusion, we come to our senses.”—Bill Moyers
Kirkus Reviews
2019-09-24
A brief, painful, and thoughtful analysis of how "the passing of the Cold War could not have been more disorienting."
More than three decades ago, the United States took credit for defeating communism, and pundits predicted wonderful things. Readers wondering why they never happened should turn to the latest from Bacevich (Emeritus, History/Boston Univ.; (Twilight of the American Century, 2018, etc.). He notes how pundits proclaimed that, as the sole superpower, we would lead the world to a better future with global corporate capitalism enriching everyone. Freedom, in this new era, required a new conception that emphasized individual autonomy. The author laments the decline of traditional morality, and he argues that completing the new order is the concept of presidential supremacy, including a freedom to make war, which presidents employ enthusiastically. Although still considered sacred, Bacevich writes, our Constitution no longer describes a government of three equal branches. The results? Military operations regularly fail at great expense. Unfettered free enterprise has enriched the middle class but excluded many. The most secure career for a high school graduate is the military. The author condemns Donald Trump's three predecessors, who embraced the new order despite admitting that there were problems that they declined to fix. "Himself a mountebank of the very first order, Trump exposed as fraudulent the triumphalism that served as a signature of the post-Cold War decades," writes the author. "On this score, Trump mattered and bigly." Few readers would argue with Bacevich's conclusion that today's critical issues are fettering free enterprise in favor of those it excludes, confronting China's new superpower status, and dealing with climate change, but they're not catching on. Many Republicans grouse about Trump, but no groundswell opposes him. Democrats promote programs to fight poverty and promote social justice, thrilling their faithful but not former Democrats, some of whom still appreciate Trump's flamboyant rhetoric.
A brilliant but ultimately discouraging analysis of how America messed up its big chance.
