The tragedy of U.S. foreign policy : how America's civil religion betrayed the national interest

Bibliographic Information

The tragedy of U.S. foreign policy : how America's civil religion betrayed the national interest

Walter A. McDougall

Yale University Press, c2016

  • : hardcover

Available at  / 4 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

"Bibliographical essay": p. 359-380

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

A fierce critique of civil religion as the taproot of America's bid for global hegemony Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Walter A. McDougall argues powerfully that a pervasive but radically changing faith that "God is on our side" has inspired U.S. foreign policy ever since 1776. The first comprehensive study of the role played by civil religion in U.S. foreign relations over the entire course of the country's history, McDougall's book explores the deeply infused religious rhetoric that has sustained and driven an otherwise secular republic through peace, war, and global interventions for more than two hundred years. From the Founding Fathers and the crusade for independence to the Monroe Doctrine, through World Wars I and II and the decades-long Cold War campaign against "godless Communism," this coruscating polemic reveals the unacknowledged but freely exercised dogmas of civil religion that bind together a "God blessed" America, sustaining the nation in its pursuit of an ever elusive global destiny.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

  • NCID
    BB22950591
  • ISBN
    • 9780300211450
  • Country Code
    us
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    New Haven
  • Pages/Volumes
    x, 408 p.
  • Size
    25 cm
Page Top