Robert J. Lieber - The American Era. Power and Strategy for the 21st Century [2005][A]

Book Description
Publication Date: September 12, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0521857376 | ISBN-13: 978-0521857376
The American Era makes a provocative argument about America's world role. It establishes the rationale for a grand strategy that recognizes American preponderance as necessary and desirable for coping with the perils of the post-9/11 world. First, militant Islamic terrorism plus weapons of mass destruction pose a threat of an entirely new magnitude and require us to alter the way we think about the preemptive and even preventive use of force. Second, the UN and other international bodies are habitually incapable of acting on the most urgent and deadly problems. Third, in an international system with no true central authority, other countries will inevitably look for leadership to the U.S. If America, as the world's foremost power, does not take the lead in confronting the most dangerous threats, no one else is likely to have the ability or the will to do so. Thus, at a time when threats from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction are a reality, and when such values as human rights, liberty and stability cannot be reliably assured by institutions such as the UN and the European Union, active intervention on those issues that matter most becomes a necessity, not an option. Robert J. Lieber is currently Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University. He is an expert on American foreign policy and U.S. relations with the Middle East and Europe. He received his undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin and his Ph.D. at Harvard and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Lieber has taught at Harvard, Oxford and the University of California, Davis, and has been Visiting Fellow at St. Antony's College Oxford, the Harvard Center for International Affairs, the Atlantic Institute in Paris, the Brooking Institution in Washington, and Fudan University in Shanghai.

Reviews
"This may be the best book on American foreign policy written since Sept. 11. Robert Lieber is a scholar with deep insight, broad knowledge, and, what is lacking in most discussions of world affairs today, common sense. Anyone thinking seriously global affairs today and in the coming years should begin with this smart and sober work."
Robert Kagan, author, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order

"Robert Lieber has written a first-rate book...A work of scholarship, yet accessible to a wider readership, a work of judgment, yet anchored in the data and the objective world...a book of quality by a scholar of genuine depth and authority."
Fouad Ajami, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

"A powerful book with truly global scope. Lieber is not only a specialist on U.S. foreign policy, he has deep knowledge of Europe, the Middle East, global energy, and security affairs...Lieber recognizes the costs and limits of military force, but he argues, without apologies, for the prudent use of American military power to safeguard the U.S. and, indeed, the world."
Charles Lipson, University of Chicago

"With its powerful thesis and compelling arguments, Robert Lieber's The American Era is destined to become a key text in the global debate about American foreign policy."
Michael Mandelbaum, author of The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy and Free Markets in the Twenty-First Century

"[The American Era is ] a wonderful, elegant and compelling analysis in every respect... It will become compulsory reading on my Masters US Foreign Policy course next year and, I believe, should be read - and hopefully understood! - by anyone interested in American foreign policy. It really represents a magnificent achievement and is a work of exemplary scholarship. I hope and trust it receives the positive impact, reviews and sales that it thoroughly deserves."
Robert Singh, Birbeck College, University of London

"Distracted by the red-hot partisan debate over Iraq, one can easily lose sight of the underlying strategic imperative that now guides American foreign policy. Robert Lieber's The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century serves as an invaluable primer on the nature of that imperative, outlining in a comprehensive but accessible fashion the continuing need for American global leadership."
Gary Schmitt, The Weekly Standard

"Lieber has produced an elegantly written and readable book. It is a welcome and, in many respects, authoritative addition to the growing literature on recent American foreign policy."
International Affairs

"Mr. Lieber's book gives a comprehensive and in-depth explanation of the foundations for the strategy and actions of the administration, of interest to its supporters. At the same time, the book will compel critics to consider the best arguments that can be made for the administration's international policies."
The Washington Times

"Robert Lieber's The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century is a brief but compelling review of American foreign policy over the last five years, and pretty much demolishes the idea that we are roundly hated or that we are culpable for various alleged sins. A sober and very readable account by a Georgetown University scholar whose intellectual integrity and knowledge shine through on every page."
Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His latest book is A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

"Mr. Lieber's book gives a comprehensive and in-depth explanation of the foundations for the strategy and actions of the administration, of interest to its supporters. At the same time, the book will compel critics to consider the best arguments that can be made for the administration's international policies." - W. Bruce Weinrod

Book Description II
This controversial book addresses the world role America has begun to undertake in light of recent terrorist events. If America does not respond actively to terrorist threats, no one else is likely to take the initiative. In such a time when threats from terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction are a reality, and when human rights, peace, and stability cannot be assured by institutions like the U.N. and European Union, global activism on the part of the U.S. becomes a necessity, not something about which to be apologetic.

About the Author
Robert J. Lieber is a Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University. He is an expert on American foreign policy and US relations with the Middle East and Europe and the author or editor of thirteen books on international relations and US foreign policy. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His most recently published book is an edited volume, Eagle Rules? Foreign Policy and American Primacy in the 21st Century (Prentice-Hall and the Wilson Center, 2002). His numerous authored works include No Common Power: Understanding International Relations (4th edition, Prentice-Hall, 2001) and The Oil Decade (1986). His articles have appeared in scholarly and policy journals including International Security, American Political Science Review, Foreign Policy, Washington Quarterly, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Commentary, Orbis, The International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, British Journal of Political Science, International Affairs (London), Politique Etrangere (Paris), and Internationale Politik (Berlin), among others.