The Rise and Decline of the American Century

By: William O. Walker III

Narrated by: RK Meier

In 1941, the magazine publishing titan Henry R. Luce urged the nation’s leaders to create an American Century. But in the post-World-War-II era, proponents of the American Century faced a daunting task. Even so, Luce had articulated an animating idea that, as William O. Walker III skillfully shows in The Rise and Decline of the American Century, would guide United States foreign policy through the years of hot and cold war.

The American Century was, Walker argues, the counter-balance to defensive war during World War II and the containment of communism during the Cold War. American policymakers pursued an aggressive agenda to extend US influence around the globe through control of economic markets, reliance on nation-building, and, where necessary, provision of arms to allied forces. This positive program for the expansion of American power, Walker deftly demonstrates, came in for widespread criticism by the late 1950s. A changing world, epitomized by the nonaligned movement, challenged US leadership and denigrated the market democracy at the heart of the ideal of the American Century.

The book is published by Cornell University Press.

©2018 Cornell University (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"An impressively detailed account of U.S. foreign policy in the early postwar decades." (Foreign Affairs)

"A provocative and original interpretation of American foreign relations history... William Walker’s work is of the highest level." (Thomas W. Zeiler, University of Colorado at Boulder)