Whether intellectuals are counter-cultural escapists corrupting the young or secular prophets leading us to prosperity, they are a fixture of modern political life. In The Public Intellectual: Between Philosophy and Politics, Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman bring together a wide variety of noted scholars to discuss the characteristics, nature, and role of public thinkers. By looking at scholarly life in the West, this work explores the relationship between thought and action, ideas and events, reason and history.

Once every decade, it is "decline time" in America. In recent years, it has been the unstoppable rise of China that has spelled "finis America." What the Chinese juggernaut is today, the Soviet Union ("We shall bury you") was in the 1950s. The Vietnam decade of the 1960s was described as America s "collective suicide attempt," while in the 1970s, the United States succumbed to Jimmy Carter s famous "malaise," as the dollar dangerously plummeted. The 1980s unquestionably belonged to a resurgent Japan, the "Rising Sun," whereas in the 1990s, Europe shone forth as an "empire by example." In the naughts, it was "Asia Rising" that became the flavor of the decade. Despite a litany of prognostications, these contenders have all fallen back, one by one.

While it may be catnip for the media to play up America as a has-been, Josef Joffe, a leading German commentator and Stanford University academic, compellingly shows that Declinism is not a cold-eyed diagnosis but a device in the style of the ancient prophets: "Thou shalt perish, unless " Gloom is a prophecy that must be believed so that it will turn out wrong. Joffe repeatedly demonstrates how the "economic miracles" that propelled the rising tide of challengers flounder against their own limits. Hardly confined to Europe alone, Declinism has also been an especially nifty career builder for American politicians, among them Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan, who all rode into the White House by hawking "the end is near."

Buttressing his argument with facts, Joffe demonstrates that America s future is sanguine. In contrast to the Carter years, the economic woes of the Obama era look more like a nasty migraine. By historical standards, the U.S. defense burden today is extraordinarily low, hence sustainable over the long haul. Immigration (plus a healthy birth rate) will not only keep the nation younger than China, Japan, Europe, and Russia but will continue to bring in the world s best and brightest. Indeed, America is the "world's Ph.D. factory" both in science and engineering, while its R&D spending dwarfs the "rising rest." Its uniquely deep and wide capital market encourages innovations and continues to turn dreams into vibrant companies.

Joffe argues that it is only if America "freezes up" by enshrining privilege, closing its doors, and withdrawing from the world that it will succumb to the rigor mortis that has overwhelmed previous empires. Effortlessly mixing keen historical insights with brilliant diplomatic and economic analysis, The Myth of America's Decline becomes a remarkable reflection on our nation s standing in the world and an eye-opening account that challenges the pervasive and now tired notion that America is on the decline."

America-bashing predates America: French Enlightenment philosophies claimed that the colony was doomed and one critic reported that the colony's population was "astonishingly idiotic [and] enervated". As the United States became a superpower after the Second World War, a more virulent, politically charged form of declinism emerged amid hysteria that "the Russians are coming". It was followed by the European miracle, Japan's "Rising Sun" and now the looming Chinese behemoth. While declinism may delight the media and gloating Europeans eager to play up America's "has-been" status, the facts do not corroborate the contentions, as Josef Joffe demonstrates in this history of American declinism. He offers a highly provocative examination of how the US, for all its failings, continues to be a force of rejuvenation today.

Uberpower effortlessly mixes military history with keen diplomatic analysis to provide one of the most important assessments of America's international standing in years. Josef Joffe examines the gargantuan burdens brought on by singular power, arguing that the new Bush foreign policy doctrine has failed to convert fabulous strength into consent and leadership. In contrast to most of his European colleagues, Joffe does not paddle "Mr. Big" for his new uberpower status, but traces the roots of Europe's (and the world's) new anti-Americanism to envy, fear, and the failure to keep up. But history whispers that power will generate counterpower, and the handwriting is already on the wall. How can the uberpower escape the fate of earlier hegemons who were all laid low by lesser nations ganging up on No. 1? Uberpower promises to be discussed and debated in the corridors of power on both sides of the Atlantic."