Robert Kagan is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is director of the U.S. Leadership Project. He is the author of A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977-1990 and coeditor with William Kristol, of Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy. Kagan served in the State Department from 1984-1988. He lives in Brussels with his wife and two children.
Brilliant and original. . . . A tour de force of historical writing that should change the way many people view the country's past. . . a landmark. -- Foreign Affairs <br> The most important reassessment of early United States foreign policy to appear in over half a century. Compellingly written and provocatively argued, it goes far toward explaining -- to the world but also to ourselves -- who we Americans are today, and where we may be going. --John Lewis Gaddis, author of The Cold War <br> A first-rate work of history, based on prodigious reading and enlivened by a powerful prose style. . . . Helps bring long-dead diplomatic history to life. -- The Economist <br> Provocative and deeply absorbing. . . . [Kagan] shows how America was always a player, and often a ruthless one, in the great game of nations. -- The New York Times Book Review