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America's Fatal Leap

1991-2016

Author Paul W. Schroeder
Ebook (EPUB)
Verso Books | Verso
On sale Feb 18, 2025 | 336 Pages | 9781804295786
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A decisive analytic critique of US foreign policy by one of America’s greatest historians

America's Fatal Leap deconstructs US geopolitics after the end of the Cold War, informed by its author's unsurpassed command of modern history. Paul W. Schroeder, an acclaimed historian of international diplomacy, was a conservative and a natural supporter of American leadership in the world.

But he wrote scathing op-eds for the National Interest and the American Conservative about the hubris and moral failings of the War on Terror, warning of damaging long-range effects on the international system. Schroeder compared 9/11 to the assassination in Sarajevo that sparked the First World War, insisting that a great power should never give terrorists a war they wanted.

He wrote with extraordinary prescience - months before the US launched its attack on the Taliban - of the 'risks of victory' in Afghanistan, characterised the war in Iraq as a failed bid for informal empire, and called for 'disimperialism' in the Middle East.

America's Fatal Leap collects Schroeder's remarkable interventions on America's adventurism in the Middle East, from the 1991 Gulf War to the Surge of 2007. It includes an Introduction by Perry Anderson, author of US Foreign Policy and Its Thinkers and Ever Closer Union?
"Probably the foremost expert on the history of international politics in the world"
—Lothar Höbelt, International History Review

"[An] essential starting [point] for those wishing to understand and critique American foreign policy today ... Armed with a historical perspective, Schroeder was one of the most perceptive critics of Bush’s war on terror."
—Daniel Geary, Irish Times

"In America’s Fatal Leap, one of the world’s greatest international historians brings his unmatched historical and conceptual perspectives on European diplomacy to a critical examination of American foreign policy in the last quarter century. This brilliant and provocative set of essays is essential reading for all who think seriously about the United States and the world."
—Jack S. Levy, Board of Governors Professor, Rutgers University

"Few might know that the late Paul Schroeder, one of the authentically great diplomatic historians of the last half century, was an inveterate critic of US foreign policy after 1989. This absorbing compilation of his writings on America’s wars from a conservative perspective deserves rereading from all perspectives."
—Samuel Moyn, author of Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War

"In these sparkling essays, Paul Schroeder, the great historian of European diplomacy, gives a riveting critique of the means and objectives of American foreign policy in the unipolar era. A superb compendium."
—David Hendrickson, author of Republic in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition
Paul W. Schroeder is the author of, among other things, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 in the Oxford History of Modern Europe. He taught history and political science at the University of Illinois for many years and died in 2020 at the age of ninety-three.
Paul W. Schroeder View titles by Paul W. Schroeder
Introduction, Perry Anderson

1. A Just, Unnecessary War: The Flawed American Strategy in the Persian Gulf, 1991
2. The New World Order: A Historical Perspective, 1994
3. The Risks of Victory: An Historian’s Provocation, 2001
4. The Case against Preemptive War, 2002
5. A Papier-Maché Fortress, 2002
6. International Order and Its Current Enemies, 2004
7. For Shame, 2004
8. Misreading the 9/11 Report, 2004
9. The War Bin Laden Wanted, 2004
10. Liberating Ourselves, 2006
11. Mirror, Mirror on the War, 2006
12. Open Fire, 2007
13. Leave or Lose, 2008
14. From Hegemony to Empire: The Fatal Leap, 2009
15. Europe’s Progress and America’s Success, 1760–1850, 2012
16. Organized Hypocrisy, 2016

Acknowledgments
Index

About

A decisive analytic critique of US foreign policy by one of America’s greatest historians

America's Fatal Leap deconstructs US geopolitics after the end of the Cold War, informed by its author's unsurpassed command of modern history. Paul W. Schroeder, an acclaimed historian of international diplomacy, was a conservative and a natural supporter of American leadership in the world.

But he wrote scathing op-eds for the National Interest and the American Conservative about the hubris and moral failings of the War on Terror, warning of damaging long-range effects on the international system. Schroeder compared 9/11 to the assassination in Sarajevo that sparked the First World War, insisting that a great power should never give terrorists a war they wanted.

He wrote with extraordinary prescience - months before the US launched its attack on the Taliban - of the 'risks of victory' in Afghanistan, characterised the war in Iraq as a failed bid for informal empire, and called for 'disimperialism' in the Middle East.

America's Fatal Leap collects Schroeder's remarkable interventions on America's adventurism in the Middle East, from the 1991 Gulf War to the Surge of 2007. It includes an Introduction by Perry Anderson, author of US Foreign Policy and Its Thinkers and Ever Closer Union?

Reviews

"Probably the foremost expert on the history of international politics in the world"
—Lothar Höbelt, International History Review

"[An] essential starting [point] for those wishing to understand and critique American foreign policy today ... Armed with a historical perspective, Schroeder was one of the most perceptive critics of Bush’s war on terror."
—Daniel Geary, Irish Times

"In America’s Fatal Leap, one of the world’s greatest international historians brings his unmatched historical and conceptual perspectives on European diplomacy to a critical examination of American foreign policy in the last quarter century. This brilliant and provocative set of essays is essential reading for all who think seriously about the United States and the world."
—Jack S. Levy, Board of Governors Professor, Rutgers University

"Few might know that the late Paul Schroeder, one of the authentically great diplomatic historians of the last half century, was an inveterate critic of US foreign policy after 1989. This absorbing compilation of his writings on America’s wars from a conservative perspective deserves rereading from all perspectives."
—Samuel Moyn, author of Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War

"In these sparkling essays, Paul Schroeder, the great historian of European diplomacy, gives a riveting critique of the means and objectives of American foreign policy in the unipolar era. A superb compendium."
—David Hendrickson, author of Republic in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition

Author

Paul W. Schroeder is the author of, among other things, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 in the Oxford History of Modern Europe. He taught history and political science at the University of Illinois for many years and died in 2020 at the age of ninety-three.
Paul W. Schroeder View titles by Paul W. Schroeder

Table of Contents

Introduction, Perry Anderson

1. A Just, Unnecessary War: The Flawed American Strategy in the Persian Gulf, 1991
2. The New World Order: A Historical Perspective, 1994
3. The Risks of Victory: An Historian’s Provocation, 2001
4. The Case against Preemptive War, 2002
5. A Papier-Maché Fortress, 2002
6. International Order and Its Current Enemies, 2004
7. For Shame, 2004
8. Misreading the 9/11 Report, 2004
9. The War Bin Laden Wanted, 2004
10. Liberating Ourselves, 2006
11. Mirror, Mirror on the War, 2006
12. Open Fire, 2007
13. Leave or Lose, 2008
14. From Hegemony to Empire: The Fatal Leap, 2009
15. Europe’s Progress and America’s Success, 1760–1850, 2012
16. Organized Hypocrisy, 2016

Acknowledgments
Index

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