Leslie H. Gelb
…a highly readable and useful hundred-year account of American ventures abroad that can serve as a path to understanding past failures and uncovering why policy renewal is now proving so elusive…[Beinart's] thesis is not new, but it is indefatigably rendered: America's shortcomings flow entirely from hubris or overconfidence, much as the mythical Icarus perished because he flew too near the sun.
—The New York Times
Carlos Lozada
…an insightful and enjoyable…account of the ideas and individuals that have animated America's global ambitions over the past century…If anything, [Beinart's] account underscores how many of the best-known and most respected intellectuals either despaired at their lack of influence, watched their ideas get twisted beyond recognition or found themselves abandoned precisely at the moment when their insights could have mattered most. The Icarus Syndrome should be required reading for all [George] Kennan wannabes and aspiring Washington wonks. Its lesson: Abandon hope all ye who theorize here.
—The Washington Post
From the Publisher
A highly readable and useful hundred-year account of American ventures abroad that can serve as a path to understanding the past failures and uncovering why policy renewal is now proving so elusive. . . . Beinart usefully grapples with the practical impediments to making good policy.” — Leslie H. Gelb, The New York Times Book Review
“Impressive. . . . Mr Beinart has produced an original and ambitious study.” — The Economist
“The Icarus Syndrome is a readable survey of ‘America in the world’ over the past hundred years. Nothing is more chilling than Beinart’s catalog of the continuous, wrong-headed invocation of ‘Munich’ and ‘appeasement.’” — Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The New York Review of Books
“A brilliant new book about the pendulum swings of U.S. foreign policy between excessive ambition and excessive retrenchment.” — The Los Angeles Times
“With this book Beinart vindicates his standing as one of the major thinkers of his generation on the United States’ world role.” — Walter Russell Mead, Foreign Affairs
“Beinart possesses the analytical skills of a seasoned historian. . . . He’s a smart, reasoned political analyst who doesn’t resort to hyperbole and hysteria when making a point. . . The result is a book that’s generally enlightening.” — The San Francisco Chronicle
“Informative and engaging. . . . Beinart’s book tackles a great deal of material in an approachable, yet never simplistic, way. . . . The Icarus Syndrome is a valuable addition to the public debate about the United States’s ever evolving role in the world.” — The Boston Globe
“Why do we succomb to hubris? Peter Beinart has written a highly intelligent and wonderfully readable book that answers the question by looking at a century of American foreign policy. As with everything Beinart writes, it is lucid, thoughtful and strikingly honest.” — Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post-American World
“Energetically researched and entertainingly written, Peter Beinart’s The Icarus Syndrome is both a fascinating intellectual history and an important coming-of-age parable about his generation’s hard-learned lesson in the limits of American power.” — Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side
“Peter Beinart has written a vivid, empathetic, and convincing history of the men and ideas that have shaped the ambitions of American foreign policy during the last century—a story in which human fallibility and idealism flow together. Beinart’s book is not only timely; it is indispensible.” — Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars
“The Icarus Syndrome does what works of history and journalism do at their very best: use the past to illuminate, in often stark and surprising ways, the challenges of the present. This is an important book.” — Jon Meacham, author of American Lion
“Beinart’s The Icarus Syndrome is very much a book with a message: a cautionary message to avoid hubris and to recognize the messy reality of world politics.” — Paul Kennedy, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
“The Icarus Syndrome is a confident and contentious history of more than a century of American foreign policy and its recurring tragic flaws.” — Sean Wilentz, author of The Age of Reagan
“A rollicking history. . . . Beinart is a wonderful storyteller. There’s not much that he leaves out of The Icarus Syndrome. (It’s exactly the book I wish I’d had when I was teaching American foreign policy.)” — Newsweek
“Powerful. . . . An insightful and enjoyable account of the ideas and individuals that have animated America’s global ambitions over the past century. . . . Required reading.” — The Washington Post
“Beinart is at his most illuminating when he lingers on forgotten episodes that reveal how difficult it is to understand the implications of any event at any given moment—the extent to which everyone is a prisoner of past failure or past success.” — George Packer, The New Yorker
The San Francisco Chronicle
Beinart possesses the analytical skills of a seasoned historian. . . . He’s a smart, reasoned political analyst who doesn’t resort to hyperbole and hysteria when making a point. . . The result is a book that’s generally enlightening.
The Economist
Impressive. . . . Mr Beinart has produced an original and ambitious study.
Steve Coll
Peter Beinart has written a vivid, empathetic, and convincing history of the men and ideas that have shaped the ambitions of American foreign policy during the last century—a story in which human fallibility and idealism flow together. Beinart’s book is not only timely; it is indispensible.
Jane Mayer
Energetically researched and entertainingly written, Peter Beinart’s The Icarus Syndrome is both a fascinating intellectual history and an important coming-of-age parable about his generation’s hard-learned lesson in the limits of American power.
The Los Angeles Times
A brilliant new book about the pendulum swings of U.S. foreign policy between excessive ambition and excessive retrenchment.
Walter Russell Mead
With this book Beinart vindicates his standing as one of the major thinkers of his generation on the United States’ world role.
The Boston Globe
Informative and engaging. . . . Beinart’s book tackles a great deal of material in an approachable, yet never simplistic, way. . . . The Icarus Syndrome is a valuable addition to the public debate about the United States’s ever evolving role in the world.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
The Icarus Syndrome is a readable survey of ‘America in the world’ over the past hundred years. Nothing is more chilling than Beinart’s catalog of the continuous, wrong-headed invocation of ‘Munich’ and ‘appeasement.’
Fareed Zakaria
Why do we succomb to hubris? Peter Beinart has written a highly intelligent and wonderfully readable book that answers the question by looking at a century of American foreign policy. As with everything Beinart writes, it is lucid, thoughtful and strikingly honest.
The Washington Post
Powerful. . . . An insightful and enjoyable account of the ideas and individuals that have animated America’s global ambitions over the past century. . . . Required reading.
Sean Wilentz
The Icarus Syndrome is a confident and contentious history of more than a century of American foreign policy and its recurring tragic flaws.
Paul Kennedy
Beinart’s The Icarus Syndrome is very much a book with a message: a cautionary message to avoid hubris and to recognize the messy reality of world politics.
George Packer
Beinart is at his most illuminating when he lingers on forgotten episodes that reveal how difficult it is to understand the implications of any event at any given moment—the extent to which everyone is a prisoner of past failure or past success.
Newsweek
A rollicking history. . . . Beinart is a wonderful storyteller. There’s not much that he leaves out of The Icarus Syndrome. (It’s exactly the book I wish I’d had when I was teaching American foreign policy.)
Jon Meacham
The Icarus Syndrome does what works of history and journalism do at their very best: use the past to illuminate, in often stark and surprising ways, the challenges of the present. This is an important book.
Newsweek
A rollicking history. . . . Beinart is a wonderful storyteller. There’s not much that he leaves out of The Icarus Syndrome. (It’s exactly the book I wish I’d had when I was teaching American foreign policy.)
The Los Angeles Times
A brilliant new book about the pendulum swings of U.S. foreign policy between excessive ambition and excessive retrenchment.
