Synopses & Reviews
Ark of the Liberties recovers a long-forgotten success story: Americas lengthy and laudatory history of expanding world liberty. Our countrys decline in popularity over the past eight years has been nothing short of astonishing, and with wit, brilliance, and deep affection, Ted Widmer reminds us why this great nation had so far to fall. His sweeping history brims with new insights about Americas enduringly favorable relationship with the Middle East; why Woodrow Wilsons presidency deserves reappraisal; the Democratic Partys underappreciated foreign-policy achievements; and how the countrys long history of successfully advocating for and exporting liberty touches immediately on the choices we face in Iraq today.
Ark of the Liberties romps through centuries of historyfrom Americas start as a fascinating virgin promised land to its present position as a world superpowerall the while reminding us of the necessity and nobility of our nations global ambitions.
Ted Widmer directs the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He was a foreign policy speechwriter and senior adviser to President Clinton, and is Senior Research Fellow of the New America Foundation. He is a frequent contributor to
The New York Times,
The Washington Post, and
The New York Observer. The United States stands at a historic crossroads: essential to the world yet unappreciated. The nation has fallen out of favor with other countries at a rapid rate since the turn of the new century. With wit, sound arguments, and deep affection, Ted Widmer revisits the many reasons why the nation had so far to fall. In a history of centuries,
Ark of the Liberties recounts Americas ambition to be the worlds guarantor of liberty. From the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United States, for all its shortfalls, has been by far the worlds greatest advocate for freedom. Generations of founders imbued America with a surprisingly global ambition that a series of remarkable presidents, often Democratic, advanced through the confident wielding of military and economic power.
Ark of the Liberties introduces new insights: Americas centuries-long favorable relationship with the Middle East; why Wilsons presidency deserves reappraisal; Bill Clintons oft-overlooked achievements; how Americas long history of foreign policy immediately touches on the choices we face in 2008. Fully addressing Americas disastrous occupation of Iraq,
Ark of the Liberties colorfully narrates Americas long and laudatory history of expanding world liberty. [An] elegant history of the ideas that shape American foreign policy. And no idea has influenced Americas understanding of its role in the world as decisively as the concept of liberty. Widmer meticulously traces the contradictions, triumphs, and betrayals of liberty that have unfolded across the centuries of the American experience.”
Evan R. Goldstein, The Chronicle of Higher Education "Theres a nice passage, a dozen or so pages into Ted Widmers new book about the history of American foreign policy, in which he talks about how delighted European explorers were, once in the New World, to discover tobacco. Dried, rolled and lighted, the plant signified nothing less than 'the intoxicating newness, excitement and danger of the Americas,' Mr. Widmer writes . . . These lines stand out because, like a struck match, they throw sparks and cast some angular light . . . His book is a winding overview of American foreign policy and the ideas that have animated it, with particular attention paid to Americas deeds (some dirty, some much less so) in the name of championing liberty."Dwight Garner, The New York Times
"Now, with Ark of the Liberties: America and the World, a buoyant sweep over 300 years of American foreign policy, Mr. Widmerhes Ted againauditions for a role even more problematical than rock star or Clinton counselor: certified public intellectual . . . If Widmer the journalist, policy wonk and hard-rock nobleman has gifted anything to Widmer the intellectual with public aspirations, its an intuitive sense of what thoughtful civilians need in their popular history. From his opening ruminations on Herman Melville (who used 'ark of the liberties' in a pre-Moby Dick sea yarn) to his supple portrait of F.D.R. as 'nothing less than the philosopher-king of the new world coming into existence,' Mr. Widmer disguises any seam between the entertaining and the edifying. In Ark of the Liberties, hes jettisoned the trappings of academic historiography that had decorated Young America: Gone are the dry declarations of theses and methods, the minute textual dissections of period documents, and, most noticeably, the extended slogs through thickets of secondary sources. (One thing Dad does not want in his July 4 reading is 'literature review.') But Ark of the Liberties never reads like a gloss on some more serious work; delightfully, it is that work. In substance as well as style, it yokes adroit provocation to apparent populism. United States foreign policy, Mr. Widmer argues, cannot be reduced to realist considerations of territory, markets or the global balance of power; central to its history is Americas singular imaginative power, as New World and City on the Hillthe 'pitch and heave' of an 'ark of the liberties' entrusted with mankinds deliverance. 'We have nothing less than a mission to redeem the world,' insists the preface, '1776 genuinely signaled the beginning of a new time in human history.' Such language suggests a hoary chauvinism, but dont be fooled. Descriptive and normative perform an intricate pas de deux in Ark of the Liberties: The American Exceptionalism, in Mr. Widmers view, is less about proving the moral supremacy of a country than demonstrating the tenacity of an ideaprecisely the idea of America as exception . . . For Mr. Widmer, the apparent slipperiness of libertyin 1776, a shibboleth of Enlightenment; in 1846, a euphemism for human bondageis no reason to reject it as serious object of historical study. Quite the contrary. In Ark of the Liberties, the words the thing: Particular phrases and rhetorical tropesmetonyms, ultimately, for ways of thinkingrecur and resonate over the centuries; as an omnibus volume on America and the World, it provides a counter-history at once deeply conservative and slyly irreverent. The insights can be deliciously unexpected. Among the most prominent touchstonessecond perhaps only to 'liberty' and its arkis millennialism. From the Great Awakening to Manifest Destiny, Wilsons Fourteen Points to the Cold War, the impending 1,000-year reign of Christor some secularized equivalent thereofoddly pervades Mr. Widmers account . . . the narrative is both synthetic and strangely synesthetic, as crackling free-form facts and pungent turns of phrase congeal into surprisingly persuasive arguments. Colors turn into theologies turn into geopolitical orientations: 'New Englanders lavished attention on obscure bits of Scripture that seemed to favor the wilderness, the West . . . They understood acutely the importance of tactical gains and losses in the global structure against Rome, a red enemy as frightening and diffuse as the Soviet Union in the Cold War.' In 1941, Churchill and F.D.R. met in Newfoundland to sign the Atlantic Charter, which generalized Americas once novel democratic principles into human birthrights. The first English settlement in this hemisphere? 'New-found-land,' claimed by John Cabot in 1497. In Ark of the Liberties, as in history, words are hyperlinks, wormholes and sometimes worse. As Mr. Widmer plows linearly through the generations, he spots again and again a strange fixation, rhetorical and otherwise, on 'Babylon,' that oriental nexus of a most un-American decadence. Not until the epilogue is the biblical citys foreign-policy payoff clear: Weve been occupying its ruins since 2003. ('The Puritans may have been right to spend so much energy warning their children against the place.') This is all great fun. Call it American history as the persistence of signifiers, a close reading of our terraqueous world . . . What it does do, brilliantly, is perform the problem, looping and linking in inspired arpeggios. And thats an essential talent of the rare public intellectual who deserves the title: The riff, done right, can be virtuoso. Just ask Lord Rockingham."Jonathan Liu, The New York Observer
"In this historical endeavor, Widmer finds 'a glorious arc' (he was a foreign-policy speechwriter for the Clinton White House; whether homonyms were encouraged is unknown) reaching from the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address to Wilson's Fourteen Points (which included a suggestion to adjust colonial claims in the Versailles negotiations, giving equal weight in sovereignty questions to the populace affected) to President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's 1941 Atlantic Charter (among its calls: economic cooperation, curtailment of force and the right of people to choose their form of government) to the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights . . . Widmer's book is both a primer and a call to faith of sortsa historically cast reminder. He's at his best when he raises issues of importance to American heritage. 'How to wield nearly limitless power when the United States had always opposed the idea of power without check?' is one of them."Art Winslow, Los Angeles Times
[An] elegant history of the ideas that shape American foreign policy. And no idea has influenced Americas understanding of its role in the world as decisively as the concept of liberty. Widmer meticulously traces the contradictions, triumphs, and betrayals of liberty that have unfolded across the centuries of the American experience.”Evan R. Goldstein, The Chronicle of Higher Education
"A vivid picture of the United States from its inception to its present position in the world . . . Why has the U.S., despite its extensive criminal history, captured the imagination of so many people? This as been true from the beginning, when American civilization amounted to practically nothing, up tothough not includingthe George W. Bush Administration. The answer, Ted Widmer makes clear in Ark of the Liberties, is that since 1776 there have been two United States . . . Many valuable points are made in Ark of the Liberties that space prevents me from listing . . . He presents his case well."William L. O'Neill, The New Leader
In this exploration of the United States promotion of liberty across the globe, Ted Widmer offers an examination of our history that should influence the way we think about our place in the 21st century world. At a time when we need to restore Americas standing in so many places, Ark of the Liberties shows us how we can do it if we remain true to our historic ideals.”Bill Clinton
"In this new, invigorating look at the history of American foreign policy, Ted Widmer, director of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, uses his formidable historical skills to explore the area where politics, ideology and religion intersected to produce an understanding of America's place in the world."Erik Chaput, Providence Journal-Bulletin
This is a wonderful and much-needed book. Ted Widmers masterful fusion of historical, political, and literary analysis will give even the most hardened cynic reason for renewed hope in Americas future.”Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War
A taut and timely account of Americas search for its place in the world. Ted Widmer probes both our exalted national rhetoric and our occasionally odd international behavior; the result is a wise analysis of Americas evolution from the nation where liberty dwells to the one that shows upsometimeswhere it does not.”Stacy Schiff
This is a thoughtful and elegant and very readable history of Americas inspiring but often tortured relationship with the world over several centuries. A superb achievement that should be read by all who want to understand why the United States behaves as it does in the world.”Gordon Wood, Brown University
With great skill, eloquence, and frequent humor, Ted Widmer tells the inspiring and fascinating story of Americas extraordinary rise to world pre-eminence from the days of the earliest settlers to the invasion of Iraq. This timely, eminently readable, and highly informative history of the idea of America will be of interest to all who care about our country and the direction we must take in the years ahead to be true to our ideals and regain the respect we have lost in todays world.”Ted Kennedy
Finally, someone has sent out a brilliant team called Ted Widmeran historian, a cartographer, a rocker-poet composer, a White House speechwriter, and one damn good storytellerto capture the many ways that we Americans have franchised our new nation: as idea, ideal, and pure product of a land where liberty can be hard to come by. What an affectionate, optimistic, and irreverent WPA Guide to every era of an astonishingly global America.”David Michaelis, author of Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography
In Ark of the Liberties, Ted Widmer retrieves the history of our countrys profound contributions to human freedom, without once falling prey to pieties or bromides. Widmers ark actually describes a great moral arc that, despite its manifest failures and contradictions, has finally, in Theodore Parkers phrase, bent toward justice. Effortlessly combining grand interpretation with reappraisals of key figures and events, Widmers account is unfailingly fascinatingand could not be more timely.”Sean Wilentz, Princeton University, author of The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008
"Though Widmer does not ignore the traditional subjects within the field, his theological analysis takes him to places where other scholars don't always tread. The former Clinton speechwriter sees the country's longtime focus on spreading liberty throughout the world as a net positive, when done properly. He begins with a long examination of the nation's founding, spending considerable time on the nation's Puritan roots and showing how John Winthrop's idea of a 'city upon a hill' has inspired politicians of both parties ever since. Widmer is harder on Republican presidents, especially Reagan and the Bushes, whom he argues didn't follow their lofty moralistic rhetoric with equally just policies . . . One of the author's key points is that Woodrow Wilson was more than a sentimental idealist, and his foreign policy was underrated. 'By giving voice to what had been airy aspirations, and mobilizing the world's peoples, and taking his plan far toward completion,' he writes, 'Wilson proved to be a realist indeed.' Widmer covers many subjects at a brisk pace while synthesizing a vast array of primary and secondary sources . . . the author makes solid use of poetry and fiction to back up his argumentsthe title comes from Herman Melville's 1850 novel White-Jacket, which uses the phrase 'ark of the liberties' to describe America's role as a moral exemplar. An unusual and engaging tour of the horizon of American diplomacy that should appeal to both scholarly and general audiences."Kirkus Reviews
"In this historical overview of U.S. foreign policy, Widmer argues that the United States has more often been internationalist than isolationist. A former speechwriter for Bill Clinton, he elaborates on the rhetorical dimensions of his topic. FDR clearly emerges as his foreign policy hero for championing human rights and the end of colonialism during World War II, even as British prime minister Winston Churchill fixated on preserving the British Empire. Widmer also praises Woodrow Wilson's idealism abroad . . . [the book's] readability will appeal to a broader if partisan public."William D. Pederson, Library Journal
"[Widmer] examines the timely question of how the concept of liberty has influenced the development of America and American foreign policy from pre-Revolutionary days to the present. Widmer argues that liberty was part of the New World's allure for centuries, and that the Puritans' quest for religious freedom led directly to the peculiarly American concept of liberty that he says 'was essential to America's modern greatness.' While acknowledging many foreign policy fiascos inconsistent with his thesisincluding the Mexican-American war, the CIA's destabilization of various Latin American governments and the war in VietnamWidmer argues that overall, American actions have been instrumental in furthering liberty, both nationally and internationally. He places Lincoln's performance during the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, FDR's leadership during WWII, the Marshall Plan and Kennedy's inspirational Pax Americana on the liberty side of the ledger . . . Widmer offers a critical, informative and ambitious study that honors the best American impulses without ignoring the times the country has fallen from grace."Publishers Weekly
Review
“Widmer offers an examination of our history that should influence the way we think about our place in the twenty-first-century world.” Bill Clinton “[Widmer] summons his countrymen to return to their own highest standards.” David M. Kennedy, The Washington Post Book World “This fascinating story of Americas epic rise to freedom and world power might renew your patriotism.” Chicago Tribune
Review
“In this exploration of the United States promotion of liberty across the globe, Ted Widmer offers an examination of our history that should influence the way we think about our place in the twenti-first-century world. At a time when we need to restore Americas standing in so many places,
Ark of the Liberties shows us how we can do it if we remain true to our historic ideals.” —Bill Clinton “Ted Widmer wants to restore idealisms good name. In the spirit of an old-fashioned jeremiad, he summons his countrymen to return to their own highest standards and properly play their anointed role in the world.” —David M. Kennedy,
The Washington Post “Widmer has written an ambitious account of the enduring global reach of America, whose uniqueness he attributes to the millennial outlook of the Europeans who first settled here.” —
The New York Times Book Review, Editors Choice “Widmers book is both a primer and a call to faith of sorts—a historically cast reminder.” —Art Winslow,
The Los Angeles Times “[A] valuable history of the ideas that have shaped American foreign policy.” —Chris Tucker,
The Dallas Morning News “A bold, sweeping, critical, ultimately admiring and optimistic (but cautionary) birthday card to America.” —Doug Riggs,
The Providence Journal “Fed up with a never-ending war and the state of the union? This fascinating story of Americas epic rise to freedom and world power might renew your patriotism.” —
The Chicago Tribune “A sweeping, elegant history of the ideas that shape American foreign policy. And no idea has influenced Americas understanding of its role in the world as decisively as the concept of liberty. Widmer meticulously traces the contradictions, triumphs, and betrayals of liberty that have unfolded across the centuries of the American experience.”—Evan R. Goldstein,
The Chronicle of Higher Education “This is a wonderful and much-needed book. It will give even the most hardened cynic reason for renewed hope in Americas future.” —Nathaniel Philbrick, author of
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War “A taut and timely account of Americas search for its place in the world. Ted Widmer probes both our exalted national rhetoric and our occasionally odd international behavior; the result is a wise analysis of Americas evolution from the nation where liberty dwells to the one that shows up—sometimes—where it does not.” —Stacy Schiff “
Ark of the Liberties should be read by all who want to understand why the United States behaves as it does in the world.” —Gordon Wood, Brown University “With great skill, eloquence, and frequent humor, Widmer has written the history of America for all of us who care about our country and the direction we must take in the years ahead to be true to our ideals and regain the respect we have lost in todays world.” —Ted Kennedy
“Finally, someone has sent out a brilliant team called Ted Widmer—an historian, a cartographer, a rocker-poet composer, a White House speechwriter, and one damn good storyteller—to capture the many ways that we Americans have franchised our new nation: as idea, ideal, and pure product of a land where liberty can be hard to come by. What an affectionate, optimistic, and irreverent WPA Guide to every era of an astonishingly global America.” —David Michaelis, author of Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography
“In Ark of the Liberties, Ted Widmer retrieves the history of our countrys profound contributions to human freedom, without once falling prey to pieties or bromides. Widmers ark actually describes a great moral arc that, despite its manifest failures and contradictions, has finally, in Theodore Parkers phrase, bent toward justice. Effortlessly combining grand interpretation with reappraisals of key figures and events, Widmers account is unfailingly fascinating—and could not be more timely.” —Sean Wilentz, Princeton University, author of The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008
“With boldness and humor, Widmer grapples with an idea central to our nations history, while providing a number of fresh insights into U.S. foreign policy and presidencies along the way. While the philosophical problem of universals is probably irresolvable, Widmer asks the right question at each stage of his history: What, exactly, do we mean by liberty?” —The Innocent Smith Journal
Synopsis
In a sweeping history of centuries, Ted Widmer's Ark of the Liberties recounts America's ambition to be the world's guarantor of liberty.
The United States stands at a historic crossroads; essential to the world yet unappreciated. America's decline in popularity over the decades has been nothing short of astonishing. With wit, brilliance, and deep affection, Ted Widmer, a scholar and a former presidential speechwriter, reminds everyone why this great nation had so far to fall. It is a success story that America, and the world, forgets at its peril.
From the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United States, for all its shortfalls, has been by far the world's greatest advocate for freedom. Generations of founders imbued America with a surprisingly global ambition that a series of remarkable presidents, often Democratic, advanced through the confident wielding of military and economic power.
Ark of the Liberties brims with new insights: America's centuries-long favorable relationship with the Middle East; why Wilson's presidency deserves reappraisal; Bill Clinton's underappreciated achievements; how America's long history of foreign policy immediately touches on the choices we face. Fully addressing America's disastrous occupation of Iraq, Ark of the Liberties colorfully narrates America's long and laudatory history of expanding world liberty.
Synopsis
Ark of the Liberties recovers a long-forgotten success story: America's lengthy and laudatory history of expanding world liberty. Our country's decline in popularity over the past eight years has been nothing short of astonishing, and with wit, brilliance, and deep affection, Ted Widmer reminds us why this great nation had so far to fall. His sweeping history brims with new insights about America's enduringly favorable relationship with the Middle East; why Woodrow Wilson's presidency deserves reappraisal; the Democratic Party's underappreciated foreign-policy achievements; and how the country's long history of successfully advocating for and exporting liberty touches immediately on the choices we face in Iraq today. Ark of the Liberties romps through centuries of history--from America's start as a fascinating virgin promised land to its present position as a world superpower--all the while reminding us of the necessity and nobility of our nation's global ambitions. Ted Widmer directs the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He was a foreign policy speechwriter and senior adviser to President Clinton, and is Senior Research Fellow of the New America Foundation. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Observer. The United States stands at a historic crossroads: essential to the world yet unappreciated. The nation has fallen out of favor with other countries at a rapid rate since the turn of the new century. With wit, sound arguments, and deep affection, Ted Widmer revisits the many reasons why the nation had so far to fall. In a history of centuries, Ark of the Liberties recounts America's ambition to be the world's guarantor of liberty. From the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United States, for all its shortfalls, has been by far the world's greatest advocate for freedom. Generations of founders imbued America with a surprisingly global ambition that a series of remarkable presidents, often Democratic, advanced through the confident wielding of military and economic power. Ark of the Liberties introduces new insights: America's centuries-long favorable relationship with the Middle East; why Wilson's presidency deserves reappraisal; Bill Clinton's oft-overlooked achievements; how America's long history of foreign policy immediately touches on the choices we face in 2008. Fully addressing America's disastrous occupation of Iraq, Ark of the Liberties colorfully narrates America's long and laudatory history of expanding world liberty. An] elegant history of the ideas that shape American foreign policy. And no idea has influenced America's understanding of its role in the world as decisively as the concept of liberty. Widmer meticulously traces the contradictions, triumphs, and betrayals of liberty that have unfolded across the centuries of the American experience.--Evan R. Goldstein, The Chronicle of Higher Education
There's a nice passage, a dozen or so pages into Ted Widmer's new book about the history of American foreign policy, in which he talks about how delighted European explorers were, once in the New World, to discover tobacco. Dried, rolled and lighted, the plant signified nothing less than 'the intoxicating newness, excitement and danger of the Americas, ' Mr. Widmer writes . . . These lines stand out because, like a struck match, they throw sparks and cast some angular light . . . His book is a winding overview of American foreign policy and the ideas that have animated it, with particular attention paid to America's deeds (some dirty, some much less so) in the name of championing liberty.--Dwight Garner, The New York Times
Now, with Ark of the Liberties: America and the World, a buoyant sweep over 300 years of American foreign policy, Mr. Widmer--he's Ted again--auditions for a role even more problematical than rock star or Clinton counselor: certified public intellectual . . . If Widmer the journalist, policy wonk and hard-rock nobleman has gifted anything to Widmer the intellectual with public aspirations, it's an intuitive sense of what thoughtful civilians need in their popular history. From his opening ruminations on Herman Melville (who used 'ark of the liberties' in a pre-Moby Dick sea yarn) to his supple portrait of F.D.R. as 'nothing less than the philosopher-king of the new world coming into existence, ' Mr. Widmer disguises any seam between the entertaining and the edifying. In Ark of the Liberties, he's jettisoned the trappings of academic historiography that had decorated Young America: Gone are the dry declarations of theses and methods, the minute textual dissections of period documents, and, most noticeably, the extended slogs through thickets of secondary sources. (One thing Dad does not want in his July 4 reading is 'literature review.') But Ark of the Liberties never reads like a gloss on some more serious work; delightfully, it is that work. In substance as well as style, it yokes adroit provocation to apparent populism. United States foreign policy, Mr. Widmer argues, cannot be reduced to realist considerations of territory, markets or the global balance of power; central to its history is America's singular imaginative power, as New World and City on the Hill--the 'pitch and heave' of an 'ark of the liberties' entrusted with mankind's deliverance. 'We have nothing less than a mission to redeem the world, ' insists the preface, '1776 genuinely signaled the beginning of a new time in human history.' Such language suggests a hoary chauvinism, but don't be fooled. Descriptive and normative perform an intricate pas de deux in Ark of the Liberties: The American Exceptionalism, in Mr. Widmer's view, is less about proving the moral supremacy of a country than demonstrating the tenacity of an idea--precisely the idea of America as exception . . . For Mr. Widmer, the apparent slipperiness o
Synopsis
Ark of the Liberties recovers a long-forgotten success story: Americas lengthy and laudatory history of expanding world liberty. Our countrys decline in popularity over the past eight years has been nothing short of astonishing, and with wit, brilliance, and deep affection, Ted Widmer reminds us why this great nation had so far to fall. His sweeping history brims with new insights about Americas enduringly favorable relationship with the Middle East; why Woodrow Wilsons presidency deserves reappraisal; the Democratic Partys underappreciated foreign-policy achievements; and how the countrys long history of successfully advocating for and exporting liberty touches immediately on the choices we face in Iraq today. Ark of the Liberties romps through centuries of history—from Americas start as a fascinating virgin promised land to its present position as a world superpower—all the while reminding us of the necessity and nobility of our nations global ambitions.
About the Author
Ted Widmer directs the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He was a foreign policy speechwriter and senior adviser to President Clinton, and is Senior Research Fellow of the New America Foundation. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Observer.