"While it may be catnip for the media to play up America as a has-been, Josef Joffe, a ... German commentator and Stanford University academic, [proposes] that Declinism is not a cold-eyed diagnosis but a device in the style of the ancient prophets ... Gloom is a prophecy that must be believed so that it will turn out wrong. Joffe [posits that] 'economic miracles' that propelled the rising tide of challengers flounder against their own limits. Hardly confined to Europe alone, Declinism has also been an especially nifty career builder for American politicians, among them Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan, who all rode into the White House by hawking 'the end is near'"--Dust jacket flap.

The Decline of America offers a carefully documented analysis of the last seventeen U.S. presidents. These men, eight Democrats and nine Republicans, have shaped the last 100 years, not only for America, but for the world. Each president is profiled with unsparing scrutiny so we can see where it’s all gone wrong. David Schein follows these critiques by proposing ways to improve America’s outlook for the next 100 years—before it’s too late.

“Audacious . . . offers a fierce critique of democracy’s most dangerous adversary: the abuse of democratic power by democratically elected chief executives.” (Benjamin R. Barber, New York Times bestselling author of Jihad vs. McWorld ) Bruce Ackerman shows how the institutional dynamics of the last half-century have transformed the American presidency into a potential platform for political extremism and lawlessness. Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the War on Terror are only symptoms of deeper pathologies. Ackerman points to a series of developments that have previously been treated independently of one another?from the rise of presidential primaries, to the role of pollsters and media gurus, to the centralization of power in White House czars, to the politicization of the military, to the manipulation of constitutional doctrine to justify presidential power-grabs. He shows how these different transformations can interact to generate profound constitutional crises in the twenty-first century?and then proposes a series of reforms that will minimize, if not eliminate, the risks going forward. “The questions [Ackerman] raises regarding the threat of the American Executive to the republic are daunting. This fascinating book does an admirable job of laying them out.” —The Rumpus “Ackerman worries that the office of the presidency will continue to grow in political influence in the coming years, opening possibilities for abuse of power if not outright despotism.” —Boston Globe “A serious attention-getter.” —Joyce Appleby, author of The Relentless Revolution “Those who care about the future of our nation should pay careful heed to Ackerman’s warning, as well as to his prescriptions for avoiding a constitutional disaster.” —Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times

The award-winning historian delivers a “brilliant and deeply informed” analysis of American power from the Spanish-American War to the Trump Administration (New York Journal of Books). In this sweeping and incisive history of US foreign relations, historian Alfred McCoy explores America’s rise as a world power from the 1890s through the Cold War, and its bid to extend its hegemony deep into the twenty-first century. Since American dominance reached its apex at the close of the Cold War, the nation has met new challenges that it is increasingly unequipped to handle. From the disastrous invasion of Iraq to the failure of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, fracturing military alliances, and the blundering nationalism of Donald Trump, McCoy traces US decline in the face of rising powers such as China. He also offers a critique of America’s attempt to maintain its position through cyberwar, covert intervention, client elites, psychological torture, and worldwide surveillance.

About national and international power in the "modern" or Post Renaissance period. Explains how the various powers have risen and fallen over the 5 centuries since the formation of the "new monarchies" in W. Europe.

The internationally renowned theorist contends that the sun is setting on the American empire in this “lucid, informed, and insightful” account (The New York Times). The United States currently finds itself [a] superpower that lacks true power, a world leader nobody follows and few respect, and a nation drifting dangerously amidst a global chaos it cannot control. The United States in decline? Its admirers and detractors alike claim the opposite: America is now in a position of unprecedented global supremacy. But in fact, Immanuel Wallerstein argues, a more nuanced evaluation of recent history reveals that America has been fading as a global power since the end of the Vietnam War, and its response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 looks certain to hasten that decline. In this provocative collection, the visionary originator of world-systems analysis and the most innovative social scientist of his generation turns a practiced analytical eye to the turbulent beginnings of the twenty-first century. Touching on globalization, Islam, racism, democracy, intellectuals, and the state of the left wing, Wallerstein upends conventional wisdom to produce a clear-eyed—and troubling—assessment of the crumbling international order. “[Wallerstein’s thought] provides a new framework for the subject of European history . . . it is compelling, a new explanation, a new classification, indeed a revolutionary one, of received knowledge and current thought.” —Fernand Braudel

Why America Failed shows how, from its birth as a nation of "hustlers" to its collapse as an empire, the tools of the country's expansion proved to be the instruments of its demise Why America Failed is the third and most engaging volume of Morris Berman's trilogy on the decline of the American empire. In The Twilight of American Culture, Berman examined the internal factors of that decline, showing that they were identical to those of Rome in its late-empire phase. In Dark Ages America, he explored the external factors—e.g., the fact that both empires were ultimately attacked from the outside—and the relationship between the events of 9/11 and the history of U.S. foreign policy. In his most ambitious work to date, Berman looks at the "why" of it all Probes America's commitment to economic liberalism and free enterprise stretching back to the late sixteenth century, and shows how this ideology, along with that of technological progress, rendered any alternative marginal to American history Maintains, more than anything else, that this one-sided vision of the country's purpose finally did our nation in Why America Failed is a controversial work, one that will shock, anger, and transform its readers. The book is a stimulating and provocative explanation of how we managed to wind up in our current situation: economically weak, politically passe, socially divided, and culturally adrift. It is a tour de force, a powerful conclusion to Berman's study of American imperial decline.