America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire [Hardcover]

Claes G. Ryn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0765802198 | ISBN-13: 978-0765802194 | Publication Date: October 6, 2003

Urged on by a powerful ideological and political movement, George W. Bush committed the United States to a quest for empire. American values and principles were universal, he asserted, and should guide the transformation of the world. Claes Ryn sees this drive for virtuous empire as the triumph of forces that in the last several decades acquired decisive influence in both the American parties, the foreign policy establishment, and the media. Public intellectuals like William Bennett, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Michael Novak, Richard Perle, and Norman Podhoret argued that the United States was an exceptional nation and should bring “democracy,” “freedom,” and “capitalism” to countries not yet enjoying them. Ryn finds the ideology of American empire strongly reminiscent of the French Jacobinism of the eighteenth century. He describes the drive for armed world hegemony as part of a larger ideological whole that both expresses and aggravates a crisis of democracy and, more generally, of American and Western civiliation. America the Virtuous sees the new Jacobinism as symptomatic of America shedding an older sense of the need for restraints on power. Checks provided by the U.S. Constitution have been greatly weakened with the erosion of traditional moral and other culture.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“An important contribution for those interested in the intense post 9/11 debate on U.S. foreign policy.” –David C. Jordan, University of Virginia

“Claes Ryn paints a truly alarming portrait of the new Jacobinism that now constitutes a powerful ideological force among our nation’s elites . . . . Ryn’s splendid book is a warning of things to come if we fail to recognie the dangers.” –George W. Carey, Georgetown University

“There is much wisdom in Ryn’s book, and the moral realism he calls for and explicates commands respect . . . . Ryn is onto deep truths about the nature of politics.” –David C. Hendrickson, World Policy Journal

“America the Virtuous diagnosed our contemporary maladies in both foreign policy and domestic life… We Americans pretend we’re a peace-loving people and that our wars have all been foisted upon us. But the United States, as Ryn explains, is an Enlightened or Ideological Republic that has slipped its constitutional moorings, and become a Fighting Faith.”

– Walter A. McDougall, Huminatas

About the Author

Claes G. Ryn is professor of politics at the Catholic University of America where he was chairman of his department. He has taught also at the University of Virginia and Georgetown University. He is chairman of the National Humanities Institute and editor of the journal Humanitas. In 2000 he gave the Distinguished Foreign Scholar Lectures at Beijing University His many books include A Common Human Ground, Will, Imagination, and Reason (2nd., exp. ed. published by Transaction), and Democracy and the Ethical Life.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 221 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers (October 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765802198
• ISBN-13: 978-0765802194
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,471,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How we got into this war, May 24, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire (Hardcover)

I am glad I heard this author on the radio and checked out his book. It's clear to me now: America has been pushed into an aggressive posture in foreign policy by imperialist thinkers and actors who want the U.S. to dominate the world,ostensibly for the sake of democracy.In the end they are most interested in power and in advacing their own hidden purposes. Because they build on utopian ideas and are breaking with the older American political tradition, they are doing great damage to American institutions and liberties domestically and creating hatred of the U.S. abroad. America the Virtuous relates the ideas of American neo-Jacobinism to a general decline of American culture, but the author also shows that this political movement is just a symptom of a much larger problem with modern America. I was vaguely aware of some of this before, but now I can see it clearly. Although the book deals mostly with ideas rather than practical politics,it is a pleasure to read. You don't have to be a scholar to find it engaging and enlightening.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Have to hand it to the author, October 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire (Hardcover)

At first I didn't like the way this book sounded at all. It went against to many of my assumptions and made me uncomfortable. But something made me stick with the book and the more I read the more I could see that I needed to rethink some of my beliefs about conservatism and America. The perspective is unusual, I don't understand it completely, and I still have to get used to it, but I don't think that I can every go back to what I used to think about Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and some others. Believe me, I didn't want to go in this direction. But the author has arguments and facts that I can't ignore. A lot becomes a lot clearer in my mind. I have to give him credit.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bush's Puppeteers Grasp for Glory, May 14, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire (Hardcover)

Everyone puzzled at GWB's radical shift from his promise of a "humble" foreign policy and modest domestic programs in 2000 must read this book!!
Bush the Younger, evidently a decent man, has been led to change his views, to act on them, and to demean the principles of history and the U.S. Constitution by "neo-conservatives," many of whom began infiltrating the first Reagan Administration after allegedly being "Scoop Jackson Democrats."
Unfortunately, neo-cons have almost nothing to do with conservatism. Instead, they are crusaders bent on toppling the USA's rich and unique historic experiences, and its superb 1789 Constitution in favor of ahistorical "shared principles" emanating from their own superior brains.
Ryn identifies their beliefs as historically similar to the Jacobins of the vile revolution in France and more properly names neo-cons as neo-Jacobins.
Ryn makes a good case for his assertion that wild-spending, interventionist, and anti-civil liberties activities at home -- all in the context of a mega-government -- and crusaderism overseas in the name of forced democracy emanate from neo-Jacobin thinking.
It's such a pity that neo-Jacobins claim to be conservatives, or to defend the values of truth, justice and the American way, since it comfuses all and gives the more traditional, constitutionalist position a bad name.
Finally, Ryn notes the immense media influence of neo-Jacobin talking heads. Even many Democrats spout a variant of the neo-Jacobin line, including John Kerry. The U.S., they say, exists to remake the world -- not by humility and example, but by might and endless virtue. Here at home, the only solution is a surveillance state, combined with intrusive, profligately expensive government.
Thinking people will find much in Ryn's work; even opponents or real Jacobins may find it interesting. Neo-Jacobins will want the book to be ignored or, in the spirit of their democratism, to squash Ryn like a bug.