Shop the Business Savings Event
Buy new:
-17% $20.74
$3.99 delivery January 23 - February 7
Ships from: RAREWAVES-IMPORTS
Sold by: RAREWAVES-IMPORTS
$20.74 with 17 percent savings
List Price: $24.99
$3.99 delivery January 23 - February 7. Details
In Stock
$$20.74 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$20.74
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
RAREWAVES-IMPORTS
RAREWAVES-IMPORTS
Ships from
RAREWAVES-IMPORTS
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$11.64
Unread book in perfect condition. Unread book in perfect condition. See less
$3.99 delivery January 23 - 29. Details
Usually ships within 7 to 8 days
$$20.74 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$20.74
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Ships from and sold by SuperBookDeals-.
Added to

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Michael Hirsh
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

At War with Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World Paperback – October 14, 2004

by Michael Hirsh (Author)
3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$20.74","priceAmount":20.74,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"20","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"74","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"RgU66B7ifvxEZATV5poZMHM9yERNTuyQSxjpvaydseqUFF2PD7AUReKlfvMTii%2FNd9OLESo1MUtQxve%2FXfCKhWHI4eg2hn9WXDNLRXi6u%2BPs0wNbG%2FCpP3niegtr6nVjvp38HNIsrKP26Fof577SAr1sTjGbXDNY%2FTku%2FI9Z4KLChv3OPYLSNw%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$11.64","priceAmount":11.64,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"11","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"64","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"RgU66B7ifvxEZATV5poZMHM9yERNTuyQvN78IFCWtYf7HgAVVAzzJJHo6jJqKh%2FAgah3BtAymqrxb1hiwLhvNUiHAkYzacpz66sotQnNTjv3ilZayuR%2BxK3qeI0t225gNPt5qkKTWGszDfQtfCyxuSfNTBRzjgCEwdvTtA5y64oNA9H3nUqBJQ%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

As correspondent for Newsweek, Michael Hirsh has traveled to every continent, reporting on American foreign policy. Now he draws on his experience to offer an original explanation of America's role in the world and the problems facing the nation today and in the future.
Using colorful vignettes and up-close reporting from his coverage of the first two post-Cold War presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Hirsh argues that America has a new role never before played by any nation: it is the world's Uberpower, overseeing the global system from the air, land, sea and, increasingly, from space as well. And that means America has a unique opportunity do what no great power in history has ever done--to perpetuate indefinitely the global system it has built, to create an international community with American power at its center that is so secure it may never be challenged. Yet Americans are squandering this chance by failing to realize what is at stake. At the same time that America as a nation possesses powers it barely comprehends, Americans as individuals have vulnerabilities they never before imagined. They desperately need the international community on their side.
In an era when democracy and free markets have become the prevailing ideology, Hirsh argues, one of America's biggest problems will be "ideological blowback"--facing up to the flaws and contradictions of its own ideals. Hence, for example, the biggest threat to political stability is not totalitarianism, but the tricky task of instituting democracy in the Arab world without giving Islamic fundamentalists the reigns of power. The only way for Washington to avoid accusations of hypocrisy is to allow the global institutions it has built, like the U.N., to do the hard work of promoting U.S. values.
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  4. Publication date
    October 14, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    5.38 x 0.63 x 7.96 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0195176022
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0195176025
  8. Lexile measure
    1470L
  9. See all details
Next slide of product details
The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Previous set of slides
  1. At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House
    H. R. McMaster
     
    Hardcover
    -50%$16.25
    List: $32.50
    Get it as soon as Monday, Jan 13
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
Next set of slides

Customer reviews

3.5 out of 5 stars
8 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Top reviews from the United States

  • D. Cloyce Smith
    4.0 out of 5 stars Unilateralism and multilateralism: finding a middle ground
    Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2003
    Verified Purchase
    "Newsweek" editor Hirsch supplies a lucid, readable account of the tensions in US foreign policy between practitioners of "Wilsonian idealism" (multilateralism) and "conservative realism" (unilateralism). He focuses on the Clinton and second Bush administrations as examples of the problems with either worldview: while Clinton, he argues, "staked his foreign policy on negotiation and norms," Bush favored "the assertion of hard power and little else." The unfortunate results, in Clinton's case, were the Bosnian conflict and the massacres in Rwanda and, in Bush's case, the deteriorating debacle in Afghanistan (and possibly in Iraq, although the verdict is still out).
    Hirsch proposes a middle way: diplomacy and cooperation with international organizations and agencies, backed by the might of US and regional military force. The world's major powers will "feel both unthreatened and protected by the United States . . . only if Washington itself embraces the international community" while simultanesly projecting its power. The "international community," he convincingly asserts, not only exists but is largely our creation, and it provides the best means for America to affirm its hegemony without seeming arrogant and to encourage democracy and well-being without seeming hypocritical.
    He offers as a model the resolution of the 1999 crisis in East Timor, when Indonesian forces began slaughtering thousands of East Timorese residents, who were increasingly clamoring to reestablish the independence they lost in 1975. After an initial (and lethal) hesitation, the US coordinated an able, multilateral response: America suspended much-needed assistance to Indonesia, the IMF withheld money, the UN passed a resolution authorizing a peace-keeping force, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (of which Indonesia was a member) made a stink, China backed military invention, and the Australians supplied the troops. The combination of diplomacy, economic sanctions, regional pressure, and military force proved immediately and extraordinarily successful. Hirsch's discussion of why our intervention in Afghanistan seems to be failing, on the other hand, shows how military force alone--without regional cooperation and financial leverage--is a recipe for disaster (and the events of recent weeks lend this section of the book considerable weight).
    Hirsch's conclusions often resemble the analysis offered by Clyde Prestowitz's "Rogue Nation," even though the two authors approach their topic from widely divergent points of view. Hirsch's book is surprisingly deficient, however, in scrutinizing America's role in the Arab world (and the Islamic world in general). He skirts entirely the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the repercussions of American energy policy--two issues troubling American strategy not only in the Mideast but throughout the world.
    Like any book on foreign policy, "At War with Ourselves" won't satisfy everyone, and it will surely anger those at either end of the political spectrum (e.g., neoconservatives and anti-globalists). Nevertheless, whether or not you agree with the selection of evidence or the overall thesis, this treatise offers much food for thought and challenges the way one thinks of the world.
    18 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Sheila Usdin
    5.0 out of 5 stars Well Documented and Spirited Argument
    Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2003
    Michael Hirsh's "At War With Ourselves "is a well documented and spirited argument for how our nation must re-think its past position relative to the rest of the world. America has been given an unsolicited mandate to help "repair the world". (Heb."Tikkun Olam"} Mr. Hirsh's empirical knowledge and extensive travels have well prepared him in forming his thesis, particularly because of his firsthand contacts with governmental personnel during different American presidential administrations.

    For those seeking a stimulating, serious and no nonsense theory, this book is a must read. Future generations would benefit greatly by utilizing this work perhaps as a textual reference to the past as well as a guide to formulating policies for the future.
    In addition, future global leaders might find his work instructive and helpful in formulating new relationships with the United States
    Helpful
     Report
  • James E Geoffrey II
    1.0 out of 5 stars At War with History
    Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2003
    Michael Hirsh, the noted Newsweek journalist and author, thinks he sees the future and it would be beautiful if only America would get over itself. In At War with Ourselves, Hirsh nominally argues that America must overcome its sense of exceptionalism and embrace the "international community". Unfortunately, what he has really produced is a highly readable but sometimes unpleasantly partisan summons to utopia, and it is not very convincing.
    Hirsh believes that the "international community" is an American creation and that America is its principle beneficiary. He also argues that it is pointless to use history and old notions of sovereignty as guides to discerning the national interest and that these must be discarded in return for the benefits of a new global order. Hirsh believes that, if successful in doing so, America's "children and grandchildren may never have to fire a shot in anger" ever again.
    Hirsh has a kernel of a point. There is a tendency of writers to draw overspecific conclusions from history's general lessons, and there is a high degree of integration in the world that is, in part, an outgrowth of American statecraft since the end of World War I. Indeed, he is right to suggest that America benefits in many ways from this integration and ignores it at its peril. However, he overstates his case, and when a writer at the outset excludes the precedents of history and promises a world of peace and harmony, the reader is well advised to be cautious.
    Indeed, for a man who discounts the value of historical precedent, Hirsh spends a great deal of his book analyzing it, albeit mostly recent history. Much of the book's first chapter is spent studying the Clinton and Bush years, or to be more accurate, the Bush years, which Hirsh finds odious, with passing reference to the preceding Clinton years, of which Hirsh is more tolerant. This makes for odd history since it ignores much continuity between the Clinton and Bush years, especially in the willingness of both leaders to use force without U.N. or other international support. (Clinton in the Balkans, Bush in Iraq.) Yet these linkages get short shrift in the book because they do not fit the Hirsh thesis.
    That thesis is plagued with obscure definitions. Hirsh's opponents are unilateralists, exceptionalists, neoconservatives and realists. Yet he never makes clear if these are different people or if they are just different names for the same people. Similarly, Hirsh, condemns the American sense of exceptionalism that he says has kept America aloof from the world, yet he applauds that exceptionalism for making possible the "international community" in which he claims America needs to become more involved.
    Perhaps most astonishing of all, however, is Hirsh's failure to adequately define the "international community" he champions. Hirsh ferociously criticizes Bush Administration officials for claiming that the international community does not exist, but his own description of it is maddeningly vacuous. Hirsh seems to suggest, tritely, that it is a global acceptance of free markets, economic interdependence, democracy and the rule of law. Yet he does not dispute that much of the Third World - especially China - may not, and the Arab world certainly does not, accept that consensus. That does not leave many nations in the "international" community. Moreover, Hirsh does not even attempt to address the argument that just because nations accept a broad consensus in principle, it does not mean that they necessarily have shared strategic objectives in practice.
    Exhibit A for that argument is the recent Iraq War, where the United States went to the United Nations Organization - strange behavior for unrepentant unilateralists, but no matter - to authorize the use of force against a state that all agreed was in violation of international law. Yet, France (among others) opposed the United States notwithstanding France's belief in democracy, free markets and international law.
    Indeed, the strategic calculations are what mattered. France had long ago abandon its part in enforcing the "no fly-zones" so as to expand its trade with Iraq and more broadly enhance it position in the less than democratic Arab world. It did so secure in the knowledge that American military power was there as insurance against any Iraqi misbehavior, and confident that as long as Saddam Hussein was in power, America would be pinned down in the Middle East, leaving France free to pursue its own objectives. Thus, democratic France used totalitarian Iraq to limit the strategic options of a democratic America. That is a situation no responsible American leader could accept - international community or no.
    Similarly, Hirsh thinks the United Nations is the best tool for restraining China. Yet it is almost a foregone conclusion that China's respect for the United Nations would evaporate were Taiwan to declare its independence. Indeed, China has said as much, "international community" notwithstanding.
    Also, Hirsh's vision is politically impractical. He notes on one page that many around the world believed that America got what it deserved on September 11, and on the next page literally complains about how the Bush Administration squandered away the world's sympathy after that day. Putting aside this seeming contradiction, Hirsh seems oblivious to the thought that 3,000 dead is too high a price to pay for the world's transient sympathies. An international community that uses American-style institutions while indulging in convenient America bashing will never sell politically in the United States.
    In the end, that thought points to the fundamental weakness of Hirsh's book. He cannot account for human irrationality. He assumes that if only America embraced the international community, the international community would embrace America. That assumption requires that America's democratically elected leaders take risks that they cannot plausibly ask their people to accept - namely infringement of the nation's freedom of action in principle, (as opposed to as necessary), in return for the hope that the nation will be loved rather than disdained for its self-abnegation. Yet in his comfortable, convenient, and wholly wrong assumption that he is living in historically unprecedented times, Hirsh has forgotten that politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
    29 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Bernard West
    5.0 out of 5 stars Hirsh Writes Hard Truths
    Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2003
    I need not expound too long. But, Hirsh's book presents to us, and to me a Republican, hard truths that have been traditionally hard to accept in the past and are harder, under the present political climate, to accept.
    While the writing, at times, can be slow going, overall, the book is easily readable.
    It is a book for the times.
    4 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Newton D. Scherl
    5.0 out of 5 stars Our Foreign Policy - How We Got Here and Where Should We Go
    Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2003
    A comprehensive review of American foreign policy, going back to the Founding Fathers. Michael Hirsh explains clearly and in great detail how the world has changed and how we must change if we are to take advantage of our unique position as the world's first and only "Uberpower". The writing is literate and the book is well indexed with excellent "notes" and references.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report