The Limits of Power
The End of American Exceptionalism
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Narrated by:
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Eric Conger
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By:
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Andrew Bacevich
About this listen
The Limits of Power identifies a profound triple crisis facing America: the economy, in remarkable disarray, can no longer be fixed by relying on expansion abroad; the government, transformed by an imperial presidency, is a democracy in form only; U.S. involvement in endless wars, driven by a deep infatuation with military power, has been a catastrophe for the body politic.
These pressing problems threaten all of us, Republicans and Democrats. If the nation is to solve its predicament, it will need the revival of a distinctly American approach: the neglected tradition of realism.
Andrew J. Bacevich, uniquely respected across the political spectrum, offers a historical perspective on the illusions that have governed American policy since 1945. The realism he proposes includes respect for power and its limits; sensitivity to unintended consequences; aversion to claims of exceptionalism; skepticism of easy solutions, especially those involving force; and a conviction that the books will have to balance. Only a return to such principles, Bacevich argues, can provide common ground for fixing America's urgent problems before the damage becomes irreparable.
©2008 Andrew Bacevich (P)2008 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift? Andrew J. Bacevich, one of the country's most respected voices on foreign affairs, offers an incisive critical history of this ongoing military enterprise - now more than 30 years old and with no end in sight.
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A Key to Understanding the US Need for Perp. War
- By Darwin8u on 05-01-16
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The Jungle Grows Back
- America and Our Imperiled World
- By: Robert Kagan
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Recent years have brought deeply disturbing developments around the globe. American sentiment seems to be leaning increasingly toward withdrawal in the face of such disarray. In this powerful, urgent essay, Robert Kagan elucidates the reasons why American withdrawal would be the worst possible response, based as it is on a fundamental and dangerous misreading of the world. Like a jungle that keeps growing back after being cut down, the world has always been full of dangerous actors who, left unchecked, possess the desire and ability to make things worse.
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Out of date: covid, Trump nobel nominations etc
- By David on 11-13-18
By: Robert Kagan
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The Cold War
- A New History
- By: John Lewis Gaddis
- Narrated by: Jay Gregory, Alan Sklar
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on new and often startling information from newly opened Soviet, Eastern European, and Chinese archives, this thrilling account explores the strategic dynamics that drove the Cold War, provides illuminating portraits of its major personalities, and offers much fresh insight into its most crucial events. Riveting, revelatory, and wise, it tells a story whose lessons it is vitally necessary to understand as America once more faces an implacable ideological enemy.
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WOW
- By Cordell eddings on 10-13-07
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Destined for War
- Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?
- By: Graham Allison
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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War with China is much more likely than anyone thinks. When Athens went to war with Sparta some 2,500 years ago, the Greek historian Thucydides identified one simple cause: A rising power threatened to displace a ruling one. As the eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison explains, in the past 500 years, great powers have found themselves in "Thucydides's Trap" 16 times. In 12 of the 16, the results have been catastrophic.
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Balances, Counter-Balances and Traps
- By Joyce U. Olewe on 10-09-17
By: Graham Allison
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All Measures Short of War
- The Contest for the Twenty-First Century and the Future of American Power
- By: Thomas J. Wright
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Russia and China are increasingly revisionist in their regions. The Middle East appears to be unraveling. And many Americans question why the United States ought to lead. What will great power competition look like in the decades ahead? What impact will geopolitics have on globalization? And what strategy should the United States pursue to succeed in an increasingly competitive world? In this book, Thomas Wright explains how major powers will compete fiercely even as they try to avoid war with each other.
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Globalist propaganda
- By Anthony Colosimo Jr on 07-10-21
By: Thomas J. Wright
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Democracy Incorporated
- Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
- By: Sheldon S. Wolin
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive - and where elites are eager to keep them that way.
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Essential listening....
- By M. Levine on 02-25-11
By: Sheldon S. Wolin
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The Return of Marco Polo's World
- War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on decades of firsthand experience as a foreign correspondent and military embed for The Atlantic, as well as encounters with preeminent realist thinkers, Kaplan outlines the timeless principles that should shape America's role in a turbulent world: a respect for the limits of Western-style democracy; a delineation between American interests and American values; an awareness of the psychological toll of warfare; a projection of power via a strong navy; and more.
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Essays on the Region of the Silk Road
- By Jeff Beardsley on 05-19-18
By: Robert D. Kaplan
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On China
- By: Henry Kissinger
- Narrated by: Nicholas Hormann
- Length: 20 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In this sweeping and insightful history, Henry Kissinger turns for the first time at book length to a country he has known intimately for decades and whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. On China illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such pivotal events as the initial encounters between China and tight line modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, and Richard Nixon’s historic trip to Beijing.
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Another History of China
- By Elton on 09-23-11
By: Henry Kissinger
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Tomorrow, the World
- The Birth of US Global Supremacy
- By: Stephen Wertheim
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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For most of its history, the US avoided making political and military commitments that would entangle it in European-style power politics. Then, suddenly, it conceived a new role for itself as the world’s armed superpower and never looked back. In Tomorrow, the World, Wertheim traces America’s transformation to the crucible of World War II, especially in the months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the Nazis conquered France, the architects of the nation’s new foreign policy came to believe that the US ought to achieve primacy in international affairs forevermore.
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Powerful punch to American dogma.
- By JLK on 06-30-21
By: Stephen Wertheim
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Diplomacy
- By: Henry Kissinger
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 37 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving from a sweeping overview of history to blow-by-blow accounts of his negotiations with world leaders, Henry Kissinger describes how the art of diplomacy has created the world in which we live, and how America's approach to foreign affairs has always differed vastly from that of other nations. Brilliant, controversial, and profoundly incisive, Diplomacy stands as the culmination of a lifetime of diplomatic service and scholarship. It is a must-listen for anyone concerned with the forces that have shaped our world today and will impact upon it tomorrow.
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Great foreign policy overview!
- By Mikhail on 02-02-20
By: Henry Kissinger
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The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
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Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
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When the Facts Change
- Essays, 1995-2010
- By: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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In When the Facts Change, Tony Judt's widow and fellow historian Jennifer Homans has assembled an essential collection of the most important and influential pieces written in the last 15 years of Judt's life, the years in which he found his voice in the public sphere. Included are seminal essays on the full range of Judt's concerns, including Europe as an idea and in reality, before 1989 and thereafter; Israel, the Holocaust and the Jews; American hyperpower and the world after 9/11.
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Essential
- By Herman Utik on 09-19-16
By: Tony Judt
What listeners say about The Limits of Power
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- BG
- 06-09-16
great critique; dubious conclusions
Great takedown of post 9/11 foreign policy and military strategy. Criticizing politicians is easy but political correctness of the conservative type has made anything but gushing praise of military leadership toxic, so that part his analysis is rare and insightful. He does an excellent job pointing out fallacies in popular arguments/excuses (e.g. "the generals need more power" or "bring back the draft so we aren't so cavalier about starting wars"), but the presentation was hard to follow and at times I wasn't sure if he was making HIS argument or laying out another in order to then critique it. It probably is easier to follow in the text version as opposed to audio. The book was anticlimactic for me as his proposal to redirect resources away from wars against ideologies and toward wars against earth's climate is a non sequitur. The left exploits irrational fears of death and destruction by climate change in exactly the same way the right exploits irrational fears of terrorism. The proper role of government is not to assuage fears, it is to protect natural rights, especially from those who use fear to convince people they'd rather "feel safe" than have rights.
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- Ellen
- 09-23-15
Excellent, and scary.
must read for those that care about the USA and our next generations. thank you
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- Richard Parker
- 04-12-20
Truth about the path, as a nation, we are on
Twelve years ago I caught (by luck) an episode of Bill Moyers with his guest, Mr. Bacevich. The next morning I was standing in line at Borders to buy this book and the people on either side of me were doing the same.
An honest, realistic, and compelling analysis of the history of our country of the past 40 years from Carter to George Jr., a story about my government I had misunderstood until I found this book Though originally published in 2008, it is all the more relevant today as we can see that 12 years hence we are still moving in the wrong direction, today we are still so unwilling to be honest with ourselves about who we are as individuals and as a nation. I’m really glad I came back and read it again.
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- Martha F.
- 11-14-08
Great Book!
This was one of the best and most important
books I've read all year. Really put the world --
and the US role in it -- in perspective.
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5 people found this helpful
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- John Westfield
- 11-11-10
Every American Must Read this Book
This is the most thoughtful analysis of the terrible mess we are in and gives some insight into how we might get out of it. Bacevich is a genius.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Tracey
- 03-05-09
Thorough
Excellent and insightful survey of the war on terror. This book provides possible non-military solutions to containing enemies of America: a breath of fresh air.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Oliver Estrada
- 11-29-22
very powerful and informative
the narrator is amazing, the writing is amazing, and the political analysis and use of "prophecies" are very on the point of what is happening today in modern America.
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- Zack A
- 05-02-16
Author's anger takes away from message
Several times while listening to the audiobook, I was tempted to stop. The author's anger contrasts with his roll model, Reinhold Niehbur, lacking Niehbur's compassion and objectivity. Thus, rather than being inspirational, the experience of
Listening was depressing and I cannot recommend to
Friends. However, the content, as opposed to the tone, was valuable. I also feel that the narrator was flat and added to the depressing quality.
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- Cyclist
- 04-29-16
Excellent
Great summary of the defects of the national security state. There's a fundamental need for Americans to be self disciplined to be energy self-reliant. Until we are energy self-reliant is American policy to find radical Islam
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- ronald maclachlan
- 09-27-08
THE LIMITS OF POWER
THE LIMITS OF POWER..... MOST ENTERTAINING AND THE QUESTION REMAINS..... JUST WHO IS/ARE AT FAULT FOR OUR PROBLEMS
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