Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How we got into this war, May 24, 2004
By A Customer
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.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ground breaking, shatters political ideology as we know it!, October 29, 2003
By A Customer
I found this book to be very informative concerning the modern transformation of political thought in America and about the significant shift in American foreign policy that has taken place in the last two years. Anyone involved in foreign policy and/or the study of political ideology can not afford to miss reading this book.
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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
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.
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