Perpetual War

Repeatedly, Divine concludes, America seeks to use warfare to create a better and more stable world, only to meet with unexpected outcomes and the seeds of new hostility. Ironically, Divine finds that America's high ideals continually prevent the very peace the nation seeks." "In the epilogue, Divine applies his points to the final American war of the century, the conflict in Kosovo."--BOOK JACKET.

The United States has been engaged in what the great historian Charles A. Beard called "perpetual war for perpetual peace." The Federation of American Scientists has cataloged nearly 200 military incursions since 1945 in which the United States has been the aggressor. In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed too controversial to publish in this country until now) Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of "evil-doers?" "Gore Vidal is the master essayist of our age." -- Washington Post "Our greatest living man of letters." -- Boston Globe "Vidal's imagination of American politics is so powerful as to compel awe." -- Harold Bloom, The New York Review of Books

A classic collection of historical revisionist essays edited by Harry Elmer Barnes dealing with the astonishing duplicity of American foreign policy leading up to the Second World War. Actually 9 books in 1, this work will forever change your understanding of how America was dragged into that war. Chapter 1. Revisionism and the Historical Blackout by Harry Elmer Barnes. Chapter 2. The United States and the Road to War in Europe by Dr Charles Callan Tansill. Chapter 3. Roosevelt Is Frustrated in Europe by Dr Frederic R Sanborn. Chapter 4: How American Policy toward Japan Contributed to War in the Pacific by Dr. William L. Neumann. Chapter 5: Japanese-American Relations, 1921-1941; The Pacific Back Road to War by Dr Charles Callan Tansill. Chapter 6. The Actual Road to Pearl Harbor by George Morgenstern. Chapter 7: The Pearl Harbor Investigations by Percy L. Greaves, Jr. Chapter 8: The Bankruptcy of a Policy by William Henry Chamberlin. Chapter 9: American Foreign Policy in the Light of National Interest at the Mid-Century by Dr. George A. Lundberg. Chapter 10: Summary and Conclusion by Harry Elmer Barnes.

For two decades Bruce Robbins has been a theorist of and participant in the movement for a "new cosmopolitanism," an appreciation of the varieties of multiple belonging that emerge as peoples and cultures interact. In Perpetual War he takes stock of this movement, rethinking his own commitment and reflecting on the responsibilities of American intellectuals today. In this era of seemingly endless U.S. warfare, Robbins contends that the declining economic and political hegemony of the United States will tempt it into blaming other nations for its problems and lashing out against them. Under these conditions, cosmopolitanism in the traditional sense—primary loyalty to the good of humanity as a whole, even if it conflicts with loyalty to the interests of one's own nation—becomes a necessary resource in the struggle against military aggression. To what extent does the "new" cosmopolitanism also include or support this "old" cosmopolitanism? In an attempt to answer this question, Robbins engages with such thinkers as Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Anthony Appiah, Immanuel Wallerstein, Louis Menand, W. G. Sebald, and Slavoj Zizek. The paradoxes of detachment and belonging they embody, he argues, can help define the tasks of American intellectuals in an era when the first duty of the cosmopolitan is to resist the military aggression perpetrated by his or her own country.

A collection of nine revisionist essays edited by American historian and writer Harry Elmer Barnes, originally published in 1953, this intriguing volume offers a critical survey and appraisal of the development and implementation of American foreign policy of during the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt; the FDR Administration’s deliberate manipulation of events in Europe and Asia to bring the US—against the wishes of the majority of its citizens—into World War II; and its resultant aftermath in the course of world history.