Beyond Paradise and Power - Europe, America, and the Future of a Troubled Partnership (Paperback)

Four years of Bush, the Iraq war, and a strengthening European Union have added a few extra oceans' worth of distance between the US and Europe. Is that to be called drift, or schism? "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus," wrote neocon policy wonk Robert Kagan in last year's influential polemic Of Paradise and Power, deftly stealing from a pop-psych hit of a few years earlier. Perhaps so, write some of the contributors to Hoover Institution research fellow Lindberg's thin but occasionally potent collection; but then again, perhaps not. New York Times correspondent Steven Erlanger reminds us, for instance, that Bush "is not the first right-wing Republican to claim to know the difference between good and evil: Ronald Reagan was despised and feared far more in Europe than George Bush is today." Europe survived Reagan, and it will survive Bush, he suggests. Which leaves us, other contributors opine, with the job of mending broken fences, which may not be so badly shattered after all: as Gulag author Anne Applebaum observes, if perhaps wishfully: "As long as a handful of countries are willing to ally themselves with the United States, Europe cannot become a powerful American opponent." Such a handful is with us, but more and more, Oxford University lecturer Kalypso Nicolaidis argues, the world inclines toward "European arguments, particularly about the importance of international institutions and international law," rather than toward American bluster. Drift or schism, the gulf widens. And what is to be done? Well, the US can conquer Europe and declare supremacy, which is probably not in the offing any time soon. Or, Francis Fukuyama very sensibly notes, "the problem can be mitigated by a degree of American moderation, even as it carries on a realist foreign policy within a system of sovereign nation-states." Solid stuff with few surprises: a think-tankish collection, important for those thinking or rethinking US-Europe relations in that context. (Kirkus Reviews)

America's dramatic split with France, Germany, and much of the rest of Europe over the Iraq war has shaken the world alliances of the last century. Beyond Paradise and Power brings together leading foreign policy experts on both sides of the Atlantic to define what this bitter separation means for America, NATO, Europe, and the world. Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus, wrote foreign policy guru Robert Kagan famously in his book Of Paradise and Power, which became an instant New York Times bestseller last year. Taking Kagan one step further, prominent foreign policy specialists - such as Walter Russell Mead, Timothy Garton Ash, and Francis Fukuyama - here provide multiple perspectives on the state of the transatlantic relationship after the war. The contributors ask vital questions: Will the European Union become a more united, powerful counterforce to American global hegemony in response to the crisis? What is meant by the clash between the old Europe and the new Europe? Does the West still exist? How do we together address the increasing global threat of terror and create a stable world order? Provocative and intriguing, Beyond Paradise and Power is esse

General

Imprint:	Routledge
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	October 2004
First published:	2005
Editors:	Tod Lindberg
Dimensions:	229 x 152 x 12mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	252
ISBN-13:	978-0-415-95051-0
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > General
LSN:	0-415-95051-1
Barcode:	9780415950510

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