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

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Claes G. Ryn (Author)
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Claes G. Ryn (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 19 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-1412813310
ISBN-10: 141281331X
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 234 pages
  • Publisher: Transaction Publishers (May 31, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 141281331X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1412813310
  • Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,433,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsHow we got into this war
By A Customer on May 24, 2004
Format: 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.
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5.0 out of 5 starsHave to hand it to the author
By A Customer on October 28, 2003
Format: 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.
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5.0 out of 5 starsBush's Puppeteers Grasp for Glory
By A Customer on May 14, 2004
Format: 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.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsJust read this
By A Customer on November 3, 2003
Format: Hardcover
I saw somewhere that this book is a "blockbuster," and got a copy. It is a brainier book than I expected. It really explains the current quest for empire and how it grows out of a deteriorating american society. I learnt a lot! The book is engrossing. Read this if you want to know what dangers we face and how we might save ourselves!
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5.0 out of 5 starsthe best short book on the geneology of neoconservatism
By gaius marius on February 15, 2005
Format: Hardcover
it's hard to gain a sense of scope, in a short book, of the depth of the malicious current which now afflicts american politics in the fascist redux of neoconservatism. ryn does admirably, tracing the mindset of radical/revolutionary polarized idealism such as we see today in neoconservatism to the rousseauian jacobins.

ryn concentrates revealingly on the revolution within the form that has taken place in america, including the onset of political euphemism and the perversion of abstract words like "freedom", "capitalism" and "democracy" such that they mean now nearly the opposite of what they once meant. using the same words with wildly different meaning is the mechanism by which the united states pretends to adhere to the old lockean/puritan values of its founders while betraying them on every front. it is a central point in understanding the political development of america in the 20th and 21st centuries as it moves to totalitarianism.

it's extremely difficult for any short book to cover western militant idealism as it has evolved from plato through the renaissance and counter-enlightenment to modern decadence and fascism, and ryn to her credit tries to concentrate her field of view in a very complex topic. that necessarily means oversights, of course, and many aspects of idealism's intellectual development are left untreated -- most notably, the heavy influence of trotsky, himself something of a new jacobin and the advocate of perpetual revolution.

but the book remains a compelling foundation for her thesis and potentially represents brutally enlightening reading for many americans who think fascism "ended" in 1945 and could never happen here. the unfortunate truth appears to be that is has been happening here for decades, and is moving to an endgame.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsgreat read

If you're interested in American foreign policy and what drives it, especially if you're interested at a deeper philosophical level, this book is for you. Read more

Published on May 7, 2014 by MissBouquet
5.0 out of 5 starsInsightful Critique of Neocons

Claes Ryn's "America the Virtuous" is a must-read for anyone who has reservations about the foreign policy the U.S. has pursued since the end of the Cold War. Read more

Published on March 8, 2014 by Frances C. Fowler
2.0 out of 5 starsDr. Ryn less thorough in this book than in his articles.

This is an interesting read, though Dr. Ryn's book is much more of a rant. I do not have anything against him and I agree with much of his conclusions. However, Dr. Read more

Published on September 9, 2013 by James
5.0 out of 5 starsSubstantive Basis for Sobering Reflection

From a variety of perspectives, this book discerningly explores the basis, principles, modus operandi, and agenda of "new Jacobinism," an elitist ideology with aspirations of a new... Read more

Published on March 5, 2013 by Dennis B. Mulcare
5.0 out of 5 starsNeocon Jacobins At War With The World

In Dubya's Red State "Republic of Virtue," latter-day Jacobins (posing as his elite neocon advisors) are destroying America in the name of saving it. Read more

Published on April 19, 2008 by anarchteacher
1.0 out of 5 starsOutdated

Nothing in this book is new. If you know anything about Pat Buchanan, Samuel Francis, or any of the other conservatives who opposed immigration and World War II intervention, you... Read more

Published on August 11, 2005 by book maven
2.0 out of 5 starsDoes anyone here know anything about the real Jacobin?

These reviews are so weird here. Does anyone question Ryn's use of the word Jacobin ? Does anyone here know what a Jacobin is ? Read more

Published on October 13, 2004 by Jeffery Frisone
5.0 out of 5 starsThis you have to read !

This book is getting attention, but everybody should read it! It might even arrest the slide of America into decadence and totalitarianism. Read more

Published on June 8, 2004
3.0 out of 5 starsOrigins of the Neoconservative Fraud

Professor Ryn's focus of this book is the theoretical political underpinnings of the neoconservatives who have urged President George W. Read more

Published on May 4, 2004 by Paul Sheldon Foote
5.0 out of 5 starsAs good as its reputation

I kept seeing favorable mentions of this book and wondered if it could be as god as all that. It is. Read more

Published on January 23, 2004

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