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Michael H. Hunt

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The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance Hardcover – April 10, 2007

by Michael H. Hunt (Author)

4.5 9 ratings

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A simple question lurks amid the considerable controversy created by recent U.S. policy: what road did Americans travel to reach their current global preeminence? Taking the long historical view, Michael Hunt demonstrates that wealth, confidence, and leadership were key elements to America's ascent. In an analytic narrative that illuminates the past rather than indulges in political triumphalism, he provides crucial insights into the country's problematic place in the world today.

Hunt charts America's rise to global power from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to a culminating multilayered dominance achieved in the mid-twentieth century that has led to unanticipated constraints and perplexities over the last several decades. Themes that figure prominently in his account include the rise of the American state and a nationalist ideology and the domestic effects and international spread of consumer society. He examines how the United States remade great power relations, fashioned limits for the third world, and shaped our current international economic and cultural order. Hunt concludes by addressing current issues, such as how durable American power really is and what options remain for America's future. His provocative exploration will engage anyone concerned about the fate of our republic.

Print length

416 pages
Language

English
Publisher

The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date

April 10, 2007
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

0807830909
ISBN-13

978-0807830901
See all details

Editorial Reviews

Review

Broadly conceived, beautifully organized, lucidly written, and richly documented. . . . Essential.--CHOICE

This engaging history of the United States' rise to global dominance explains how a weak and peripheral New World republic turned itself into the preeminent power of the twentieth century.--Foreign Affairs

"This book is a marvel of research (the annotated bibliography itself is worth the price) and just plain thoughtfulness. . . . Michael Hunt has produced a study that both traditionalists and new diplomatic historians--as well as the public, including politicians--should read, and read again. . . . Students of American history will, I expect, look to this book as a standard of sweeping interpretation and information that surpasses all before it.--Thomas W. Zeiler, H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews

A provocative book. . . . An impressively argued interpretation.--The International History Review

Hunt is a serious scholar, and there is much to learn from and about his explanation of America's ascendancy. . . . [A] sound study.--MetroMagazine

Provides crucial insights into the nation's controversial role in the world today and prospects for the durability of U.S. power.--Carolina Arts & Sciences

Displays an impressive command of the historical literature, an ability to tackle important contemporary questions, and a capacity to make connections about disparate problems in American history. . . . Hunt's informed review of how the U.S. reached its present dilemma will provide a much-needed historical perspective. Policy makers would do well to ponder this sobering record of how a national search for ascendancy can produce as many intractable problems as it solves.--Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

A masterly overview of America's rise to its current status. . . . Given this outstanding book's breadth--both its temporal scope and the issues covered--a brief review cannot do it justice.--Journal of American History

Compact but still reasonably detailed as well as illuminating. . . . Traces the broad lines of the national experience placing them with knowledge and balance within the context of global transformations.--Ricerche di Storia Politica

Hunt writes with clarity and verve. . . . [This] should be on the desk of every candidate for national office.--American Historical Review

Review

Not only does Hunt come as close as anyone reasonably can to answering the historical puzzle of how America rose from insignificance to world prominence, but he also provides an excellent history of the American experience. With a fascinating subject and a lively writing style, he offers an important contribution to the current debate about the United States' position in the world.--Piero Gleijeses, Johns Hopkins University

Michael Hunt does not disappoint. He has written a stimulating overview of what was once called America's 'rise to power,' and he has done so by structuring his account around a set of themes and propositions rather than simple chronology. The book is everywhere enlivened by the author's active engagement in original research and his skillful tapping of the latest scholarship. He moves easily and fluidly through a complex set of historical events taking place over a very long period of time with a gracefulness very few historians achieve.--Marilyn Young, New York University

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The University of North Carolina Press; New edition (April 10, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0807830909
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0807830901
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.65 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,380,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #41,546 in International & World Politics (Books)
- #163,092 in United States History (Books)

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4.5 9 ratings

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Amazon Customer

International Politics is Awesome!

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2013

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This is a great book that goes into detail when it comes to explaining how we got to this point and I recommend that everyone should read at least once.

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2017

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Good book, arrived quickly

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ajitB

Understanding why Neoliberalism is so triumphant today

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2008

Neoliberalism, the belief that it is safer to repose faith in markets than on a State is the operating philosophy in many countries today. What led to this triumph? Michael Hunt's book provides many of the answers.
He points first to the influence of ideas. Hayek's, "The Road to Serfdom" for instance which presented the State as a stop on the road to totalitarianism, Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom", which presents markets as not only efficient but also the only guarantor of freedom, to name just two.
He also points to the untiring proselytism of think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation and the failure of Keynsian, state-led initiatives to solve the stagflation of the '70's and most of all the collapse of the Soviet System in the late '90's which demolished faith in the centralized planned economy model.
The Western liberal democratic model has appeared to have triumphed to the point that Francis Fukuyama called it " the end of history", the final form of human government.
The American elite, Hunt says, now have substituted "globalization" as their over-riding mantra, leaving behind the Cold War mantra.
The power of Hunt's analysis is that he views all these movements as a continuation of of an efforts by the a small group of American thinkers and statesman to seek and achieve global dominance.He traces such efforts back to its nineteenth century foundations, the "grand projects" (President McKinley's aggressive pursuit of the possessions of a declining Spanish Empire in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Philippines) onto the enormous growth of the technology -based American economy in the inter-war period, learning to deal with the complicated situation that arose with the retreat from colonialism of the European powers in the 1941-68 period.
The ends the book with questions that are currently being raised about the neo-liberal American hegemony: by the Europeans, the Japanese , the East Asians and the Chinese ,all of who remain strongly committed to the interventionist state, by a resurgent Russia, by the rise of fundamentalism in the Middle East....history has not really ended.

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Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2016

Verified Purchase

Book was in great condition

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