The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance

by Michael H. Hunt

Overview

A simple question lurks amid the considerable controversy created by recent U.S. policy: what road did Americans travel to reach their current global preeminence? Taking the long historical view, Michael Hunt demonstrates that wealth, confidence, and leadership were key elements to America’s ascent. In an analytic narrative that illuminates the past rather than indulges in political triumphalism, he provides crucial insights into the country’s problematic place in the world today.

Hunt charts America’s rise to global power from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to a culminating multilayered dominance achieved in the mid-twentieth century that has led to unanticipated constraints and perplexities over the last several decades. Themes that figure prominently in his account include the rise of the American state and a nationalist ideology and the domestic effects and international spread of consumer society. He examines how the United States remade great power relations, fashioned limits for the third world, and shaped our current international economic and cultural order. Hunt concludes by addressing current issues, such as how durable American power really is and what options remain for America’s future. His provocative exploration will engage anyone concerned about the fate of our republic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807883419
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	04/10/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Michael H. Hunt is Everett H. Emerson Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is author of nine previous books, including The World Transformed: 1945 to the Present; Lyndon Johnson’s War: America’s Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 1945–1968; and Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Framing the Question 1

1 Nineteenth-Century Foundations 11

2 Grand Projects, 1898-1920 45

3 The American Way in a Fragmenting World, 1921-1940 79

4 Reaching for Geopolitical Dominance, 1941-1968 115

5 In the American Image, 1941-1968 151

6 The Third-World Challenge, 1941-1968 188

7 Disoriented Giant, 1968-1991 225

8 The Neoliberal Triumph, 1991- 266

Conclusion: Hegemony in Question 308

Notes 325

A Guide to the Literature 357

Acknowledgments 387

Index 389

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Not only does Hunt come as close as anyone reasonably can to answering the historical puzzle of how America rose from insignificance to world prominence, but he also provides an excellent history of the American experience. With a fascinating subject and a lively writing style, he offers an important contribution to the current debate about the United States' position in the world.—Piero Gleijeses, Johns Hopkins University

Michael Hunt does not disappoint. He has written a stimulating overview of what was once called America's 'rise to power,' and he has done so by structuring his account around a set of themes and propositions rather than simple chronology. The book is everywhere enlivened by the author's active engagement in original research and his skillful tapping of the latest scholarship. He moves easily and fluidly through a complex set of historical events taking place over a very long period of time with a gracefulness very few historians achieve.—Marilyn Young, New York University

Editorial Reviews

This engaging history of the United States' rise to global dominance explains how a weak and peripheral New World republic turned itself into the preeminent power of the twentieth century. Hunt, lacking a strong theoretical core or striking organizing idea, tells a mostly familiar story that emphasizes economics, state building, and diplomacy. A precondition for dominance was the extraordinary growth of the nation's economy from the nineteenth century onward, generating unmatched wealth and technological capabilities. But material prosperity depended on the building of a strong modern state that could govern and wield geopolitical power. Moreover, the "American century" was planned and engineered by political elites who embraced a distinctive American nationalism of "greatness"; it was not something that emerged inevitably from deeper historical forces. Accordingly, Hunt focuses on presidents and their aggrandizing decisions: William McKinley and the war with Spain, Woodrow Wilson and his plans to remake the world, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and the building of the postwar order. He argues that the American "project" has not been empire but rather a more consensual -- if still hierarchical -- international order.

Foreign Affairs

“This engaging history of the United States' rise to global dominance explains how a weak and peripheral New World republic turned itself into the preeminent power of the twentieth century.” — Foreign Affairs

“A masterly overview of America’s rise to its current status. . . . Given this outstanding book’s breadth — both its temporal scope and the issues covered — a brief review cannot do it justice.” — Journal of American History

“Hunt writes with clarity and verve. . . . [This] should be on the desk of every candidate for national office.” — American Historical Review

“A provocative book. . . . An impressively argued interpretation.” — The International History Review

“Provides crucial insights into the nation’s controversial role in the world today and prospects for the durability of U.S. power.” — Carolina Arts & Sciences

“Compact but still reasonably detailed as well as illuminating. . . . Traces the broad lines of the national experience placing them with knowledge and balance within the context of global transformations.” — Ricerche di Storia Politica

“Hunt is a serious scholar, and there is much to learn from and about his explanation of America’s ascendancy. . . . [A] sound study.” — MetroMagazine

“Broadly conceived, beautifully organized, lucidly written, and richly documented. . . . Essential.” — CHOICE

“This book is a marvel of research (the annotated bibliography itself is worth the price) and just plain thoughtfulness. . . . Michael Hunt has produced a study that both traditionalists and new diplomatic historians — as well as the public, including politicians — should read, and read again. . . . Students of American history will, I expect, look to this book as a standard of sweeping interpretation and information that surpasses all before it.” — Thomas W. Zeiler, #H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews#

“Displays an impressive command of the historical literature, an ability to tackle important contemporary questions, and a capacity to make connections about disparate problems in American history. . . . Hunt’s informed review of how the U.S. reached its present dilemma will provide a much-needed historical perspective. Policy makers would do well to ponder this sobering record of how a national search for ascendancy can produce as many intractable problems as it solves.” — Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

From the Publisher