America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder

Bret Stephens (Get this book)
In his first book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign affairs columnist for the Wall Street Journal surveys the tumultuous international scene and calls for America to do what great nations have always done: Lead. By any objective measure, writes Stephens, the United States is not in decline. We'll be the world's leading power for decades to come, the chief adversary for the likes of China, Russia and Iran, and "the preferred target for any ambitious terrorist group." For the past 10 years, however, the nation has been in retreat, shrinking from international responsibilities. In this mostly persuasive polemic, the author outlines the persistent tension in our history-in both major parties-between the impulse to retire entirely from the world or to try to save it. A provocative, carefully reasoned argument, anathema to politicians as disparate as Barack Obama and Rand Paul.--Kirkus