Synopses & Reviews
A penetrating critique of America's foreign policy every bit as provocative as Robert Kagan's best-selling
Of Paradise and Power.
Überpower effortlessly mixes military history with keen diplomatic analysis to provide one of the most important assessments of America's international standing in years. Josef Joffe examines the gargantuan burdens brought on by singular power, arguing that the new Bush foreign policy doctrine has failed to convert fabulous strength into consent and leadership. In contrast to most of his European colleagues, Joffe does not paddle Mr. Big for his new überpower status, but traces the roots of Europe's (and the world's) new anti-Americanism to envy, fear, and the failure to keep up.
But history whispers that power will generate counterpower, and the handwriting is already on the wall. How can the überpower escape the fate of earlier hegemons who were all laid low by lesser nations ganging up on No. 1? Überpower promises to be discussed and debated in the corridors of power on both sides of the Atlantic.
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"Astute and historically informed." Booklist
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"Joffe...offers particularly valuable insights on the subject of anti-Americanism....Joffe's model is plausible, his arguments persuasive. Makes a witty case for how the world ought to work." Kirkus Reviews
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"Überpower is a brilliant polemic for benign American centrality....But it is an unconvincing, often irksome prescription for how that can endure." Roger Cohen, New York Times
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"[L]ucid, literate and tough-minded look at America's international future." William Grimes, New York Times
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"Several other books have delineated the long history of anti-Americanism in Europe, but none has described the phenomenon in its current form so well." James Mann, Washington Post
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"After a couple of hundred pages at turns tortuous and tiresome, Joffe can do no better than to urge America 'Mr. Big' to try to be more respectful of others as it runs the world..." Alexander Zaitchik, San Francisco Chronicle
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"In Überpower, Josef Joffe...provides a thoughtful European view of America's global status....[H]e helps define the international political context...and he usefully suggests why so much of the world watches America so warily. That is more than many books in this genre provide." Philip Seib, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Synopsis
"Lucid, literate and tough-minded."--William Grimes, The New York Times
Synopsis
Überpower effortlessly mixes military history with keen diplomatic analysis to provide one of the most important assessments of America's international standing in years. Josef Joffe examines the gargantuan burdens brought on by singular power, arguing that the new Bush foreign policy doctrine has failed to convert fabulous strength into consent and leadership. In contrast to most of his European colleagues, Joffe does not paddle "Mr. Big" for his new überpower status, but traces the roots of Europe's (and the world's) new anti-Americanism to envy, fear, and the failure to keep up. But history whispers that power will generate counterpower, and the handwriting is already on the wall. How can the überpower escape the fate of earlier hegemons who were all laid low by lesser nations ganging up on No. 1? Überpower promises to be discussed and debated in the corridors of power on both sides of the Atlantic.
About the Author
Publisher-editor of Die Zeit since 2000, Josef Joffe contributes to Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the National Interest. He has taught at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Stanford Universities, where he is currently a fellow at the Hoover Institute.