Liberty's surest guardian
Subtitle: rebuilding nations after war from the founders to Obama
By: Jeremi Suri
Edition: 1st Free Press trade paperback ed.
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 358
ISBN-13: 9781439119136
Subjects: Nation-building; History
Description: Jeremi Suri--Nobel Fellow and leading light in the next generation of policy makers--looks to America's history to see both what it has to offer failed states around the world and what it should avoid. Far from being cold imperialists, Americans have earnestly attempted to export their invention of representative government. We have had successes (Reconstruction after the American Civil War, the Philippines, Western Europe) and failures (Vietnam), and we can learn a good deal from both. The framers of the Constitution initiated a policy of cautious nation-building, hoping not to conquer other countries, but to build a world of stable, self-governed societies that would support America's way of life--yet no other country has created more problems for itself and for others by intervening in distant lands and pursuing impractical changes. Suri has mined more than two hundred years of American policy in order to explain the five Ps of nation-building: Partners, Process, Problem-solving, Purpose, and People.--From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The American nation-building creed --; title: Reconstruction after civil war --; title: Reconstruction after empire --; title: Reconstruction after fascism --; title: Reconstruction after Communist revolution --; title: Reconstruction after September 11 --; title: Conclusion : the future of nation-building.