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A fierce critique of civil religion as the taproot of America’s bid for global hegemony Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Walter A. McDougall argues powerfully that a pervasive but radically changing faith that “God is on our side” has inspired U.S. foreign policy ever since 1776. The first comprehensive study of the role played by civil religion in U.S. foreign relations over the entire course of the country’s history, McDougall’s book explores the deeply infused religious rhetoric that has sustained and driven an otherwise secular republic through peace, war, and global interventions for more than two hundred years. From the Founding Fathers and the crusade for independence to the Monroe Doctrine, through World Wars I and II and the decades-long Cold War campaign against “godless Communism,” this coruscating polemic reveals the unacknowledged but freely exercised dogmas of civil religion that bind together a “God blessed” America, sustaining the nation in its pursuit of an ever elusive global destiny.
'Promised Land, Crusader State' is a reinterpretation of the traditions that have shaped U.S. foreign policy from 1776 to the present. Looking back over two centuries, Walter McDougall draws a striking contrast between America as Promised Land and a contrary vision of America as Crusader State.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History for 1986, this highly acclaimed study approaches the space race as a problem in comparative public policy. Drawing on exhaustive research, author and ORBIS editor Walter A. McDougall examines U.S., European, and Soviet space programs and their politics. 25 illustrations.
This powerful reinterpretation of United States history is remarkable not only for its scholarship and historical breadth, but also in its assertion that the success of the country depends in a large part on the unique American character, which has shaped so many historic events. In the first of a projected three-volume series, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Walter A. McDougall argues that the creation of the United States is the central event in the last four hundred years of world history. Freedom Just Around the Corner masterfully chronicles the earliest years of this nation, revealing that the genius behind the success of the United States is not based on the works and ideas of one person...
A “provocative and richly detailed” history of 19th-century America from the age of Jackson to the abandonment of Reconstruction (Kirkus, starred review). From its shocking curtain-raiser—the conflagration that consumed Lower Manhattan in 1835—to the climactic centennial year of 1876, when Americans staged a corrupt, deadlocked presidential campaign (fought out in Florida), Walter A. McDougall’s Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877 throws off sparks like a flywheel. This eagerly awaited sequel to Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585-1828 carries the saga of the American people’s continuous self-reinvention from the inauguration of Pre...
In this exceptionally innovative work, Walter McDougall projects on a large screen four hundred years of exciting voyages of discovery, pioneering feats, engineering marvels, political plots and business chicanery, racial clashes and brutal wars. It is a chronicle complete with little-known facts and turning points, but always focused on the remarkable people at the center of events, among them the America-loving Japanese ambassador to Washington on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Russian builder of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and a Hawaiian queen during the first period of Western competition for the islands. Let the Sea Make a Noise . . . is a gripping account of the rise and fall of the empires in the last, vast, unexplored corner of the habitable earth -- an area occupying one-sixth of the globe. There is no other book that covers these same subjects in this wealth of detail and with such chronological scope.
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A vital instrument of power, telecommunications is and has always been a political technology. In this book, Headrick examines the political history of telecommunications from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of World War II. He argues that this technology gave society new options. In times of peace, the telegraph and radio were, as many predicted, instruments of peace; in times of tension, they became instruments of politics, tools for rival interests, and weapons of war. Writing in a lively, accessible style, Headrick illuminates the political aspects of information technology, showing how in both World Wars, the use of radio led to a shadowy war of disinformation, cryptography, and communications intelligence, with decisive consequences.
In May 1997, a group of distinguished historians announced the formation of the Historical Society, an organization that sought to be free of the jargon-laden debates and political agendas that have come to characterize the profession. Eugene Genovese, Prsident of the Society, explained the commitment to form a new and genuinely diverse organization. "The Society extends from left to right and embraces people of every ideological and political tendency. The Society promotes frank debate in an atmosphere of civility, mutual respect, and common courtesy. All we require is that participants lay down plausible premises; reason logically; appeal to evidence; and prepare to exchange criticism with...
This powerful reinterpretation of United States history is remarkable not only for its scholarship and historical breadth, but also in its assertion that the success of the country depends in a large part on the unique American character, which has shaped so many historic events. In the first of a projected three-volume series, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Walter A. McDougall argues that the creation of the United States is the central event in the last four hundred years of world history. Freedom Just Around the Corner masterfully chronicles the earliest years of this nation, revealing that the genius behind the success of the United States is not based on the works and ideas of one person...