The Middle Way
How Three Presidents Shaped America’s Role in the World
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Grove
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By:
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Derek Chollet
About this listen
When thinking about America's role in the world, Dwight Eisenhower, George H. W. Bush, and Barack Obama may not seem to have a lot in common. But they do. While divided by background, generation, and political party, they exemplify a distinct and underappreciated tradition of American leadership: The Middle Way. As the scholar and former senior foreign policy official Derek Chollet shows in this deeply researched book, these three presidents took a centrist - and effective - approach to foreign policy. With so many challenges facing the United States, Chollet makes the case for why the nation must reclaim this brand of leadership, learn from it, and champion it.
This timely book blends history, politics, and biography to reveal how these presidents viewed the world and approached the task of leadership. By providing behind-the-scenes accounts and incisive analysis of the foreign policies of Ike, Bush 41, and Obama, The Middle Way offers a fresh way of thinking about American power. It shows how these three leaders defined a foreign policy archetype too often obscured by partisan blinders and historical amnesia. With vivid storytelling and astute insights, Chollet makes a compelling argument for how we should remember the past, think about the present, and approach the policy challenges of tomorrow.
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Permanent war and insolvency...thanks Washington
- By Jonnie on 10-13-10
By: Andrew Bacevich
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To Build a Better World
- Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth
- By: Philip Zelikow, Condoleezza Rice
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Two of America's leading scholar-diplomats, Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, have combed sources in several languages, interviewed leading figures, and drawn on their own firsthand experience to bring to life the choices that molded the contemporary world. Zeroing in on the key moments of decision, the might-have-beens, and the human beings working through them, they explore both what happened and what could have happened, to show how one world ended and another took form.
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Valuable historical narrative
- By Jane G. Malkin on 04-07-22
By: Philip Zelikow, and others
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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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America and Iran
- A History, 1720 to the Present
- By: John Ghazvinian
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 27 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of the relations between these two nations back to the Persian Empire of the 18th century - the subject of great admiration by Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams - and an America seen by Iranians as an ideal to emulate for their own government.
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Distortions Galore
- By Chuck S. on 03-15-21
By: John Ghazvinian
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The Russia Trap
- How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe
- By: George Beebe
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Every American president since the end of the Cold War has called for better relations with Russia. But each has seen relations get worse by the time he left office. Now, the two countries are facing off in a virtual war being fought without clear goals or boundaries. Why? George Beebe argues that new game-changing technologies, disappearing rules of the game, and distorted perceptions on both sides are combining to lock Washington and Moscow into an escalatory spiral that they do not recognize.
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Too soft on Russia
- By Jim Flynn on 06-28-20
By: George Beebe
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Fascism
- A Warning
- By: Madeleine Albright
- Narrated by: Madeleine Albright
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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At the end of the 1980s, when the Cold War ended, many, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, believed that democracy had triumphed politically once and for all. Yet nearly 30 years later, the direction of history no longer seems certain. A repressive and destructive force has begun to reemerge on the global stage - sweeping across Europe, parts of Asia, and the United States - that to Albright, looks very much like fascism.
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Warning!
- By JAL on 04-19-18
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The Age of Illusions
- How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory
- By: Andrew Bacevich
- Narrated by: Andrew Bacevich, Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Washington establishment felt it had prevailed in a world-historical struggle. Our side had won, a verdict that was both decisive and irreversible. For the world’s “indispensable nation”, its “sole superpower”, the future looked very bright. History, having brought the United States to the very summit of power and prestige, had validated American-style liberal democratic capitalism as universally applicable.
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Needs an update
- By Scott Burton on 05-24-20
By: Andrew Bacevich
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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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How Wars End
- Why We Always Fight the Last Battle
- By: Gideon Rose
- Narrated by: Gideon Rose
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1991, the United States Army trounced the Iraqi army in battle only to stumble blindly into postwar turmoil. Then in 2003 the United States did it again. How could this happen? How could the strongest power in modern history fight two wars against the same opponent in just over a decade, win lightning victories both times, and yet still be woefully unprepared for the aftermath? Because Americans always forget the political aspects of war.
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Excellent book
- By Luis on 11-04-10
By: Gideon Rose
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The Hardest Job in the World
- The American Presidency
- By: John Dickerson
- Narrated by: John Dickerson
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The American presidency is in trouble. It has become overburdened, misunderstood, almost impossible to do. “The problems in the job unfolded before Donald Trump was elected, and the challenges of governing today will confront his successors”, writes John Dickerson. After all, the founders never intended for our system of checks and balances to have one superior Chief Magistrate, with Congress demoted to “the little brother who can’t keep up”.
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Couldn’t wait for this book!
- By David H. Lawrence XVII on 06-17-20
By: John Dickerson