A Newsweek journalist argues that America must embrace the international system it has created

”This is the best account of the tensions within American foreign policy today.”

—Fareed Zakaria, author of The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy At Home and Abroad

"A masterful account of American foreign policy in the Clinton and George W. Bush years. With compelling narratives of the personalities and policy choices that shaped the country’s global relations over the last decade, Michael Hirsh brings into focus the ideas, turning points, and lost opportunities in America's confrontation with the post-Cold War era. Hirsh’s book is essential reading for everyone interested in American foreign policy today.”

—G. John Ikenberry, Peter F. Krogh Professor of Geopolitics and Global Justice Georgetown University and the author of After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint and the Rebuilding of Order after Major War

”Michael Hirsh’s new book makes compelling reading for all those who care about how the world’s only superpower engages with the rest of the world and wonder why Washington often struggles to get political support for the sensible policies Hirsh carefully outlines.”

—James P. Rubin, former Assistant Secretary of State and host of PBS's "Wide Angle"

”A pointed examination, both timely and lively, of the risks and responsibilities attendant in being the world's sole superpower.”

—Kirkus Reviews

”Michael Hirsh has accomplished the (almost) unthinkable--he has woven together American ideological leadership since the end of the second World War, the complexities and sometimes schizophrenia of U.S. foreign and economic policy, the growth (and necessity) of American hard and soft power, and the gaggle of American attitudes about our place in the world, and lays out a thoroughly compelling case for enhanced American involvement in and support of the global institutions and ‘international community,’ so much the subject of today’s popular debate.”

—Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky