The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941 (Dangerous Nation Trilogy)

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The portrayal of the war as a battle between democracy and autocracy was not just Wilson’s notion. It was echoed by other leading American figures, including his Republican opponent in the 1916 presidential election, Charles Evans Hughes, who denounced Germany’s “onslaught on liberty and on civilization itself.” At least in Kagan’s telling, this framing relied less on a defense of abstract liberal democratic principles and more on an abhorrence of the ruthless and uncivilized behavior of the autocratic regime. So whatever advantage Germany may have received from the terror it inspired in its enemies, it paid the price of incurring the powerful antagonism of the American people. Kagan has produced a formidable work of synthesis and analysis based on prodigious reading and deep thinking. He adroitly places the evolution of U.S. policy in the context of developments in Europe and Asia, illuminating the challenges emanating from external events without losing sight of the domestic political context. His provocative conclusions will force scholars and students, policy makers and lay readers to reassess their understanding of America’s role in the international arena from the Spanish-American War to World War II.” A deeply researched and exceptionally readable book about a period with which many Americans are, in practice, only cursorily familiar.Kagan offers a wealth of detail, nuance, and complexity, bringing this critical period in America’s rise to global leadership vividly to life."

Now, we have fought a righteous war . . . and that is rare in history . . . but by the grace of that war we set Cuba free, and we joined her to those three or four free nations that exist on this earth; and we started out to set those poor Filipinos free too, and why, why, why that most righteous purpose of ours has apparently miscarried I suppose I never shall know. Gripping...Kagan is a fine writer and an indefatigable researcher....His book is the product of a monumental amount of work....I recommend it." A comprehensive, sweeping history of America's rise to global superpower--a follow up to the author's acclaimed first volume, from our nation's earliest days to the dawn of the twentieth century.Marc F. Plattner is a contributing editor of American Purpose , the founding co-editor emeritus of the Journal of Democracy and a distinguished nonresident fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) International Forum for Democratic Studies.

Americans on the scene-career diplomats, military officers, and political appointees alike-warned throughout the 1920s that the danger of another war was high, that American economic interests were threatened, and that absent a more active American diplomacy a ‘catastrophe’ loomed.” Errors of commission and omission" Max Lerner argued, brought the world to "The Threshold of an ice age, in which we shall have to fight and endure." Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.The U.S. minister to China, Paul Reinsch, warned that if Japan were not contained, it would become ‘the greatest engine of military oppression and dominance’ that the world had ever seen and that a ‘huge armed conflict’ would be ‘absolutely inevitable.’” A professional historian’s product through and through, sharply focused on its period and supported by amazingly detailed endnotes....Probably the most comprehensive, and most impressive, recent analysis we have of how Americans regarded the outside world and its own place in it during those four critical decades....Mr. Kagan recounts presidential decision-making and official actions in great detail, yet offers even greater analysis of the swirls of U.S. public opinion, the arguments of the press and pundits, the evidence in Gallup polls, and the ever-important actions of senators and congressmen." Next, enter the party via the side entrance and take out Aleksis by dropping him in the meat grinder for the Alpha Burger achievement. Aleksis will be the one doing most of the talking on the floor of the party with an auto-pistol icon and an uncommon/cool gun. After the woman tells a story about her mother, he will take the stage, and you can press the button on the left balcony to drop him. America’s very absence had an outsized effect and, according to Kagan, a comparably small engagement would have yielded far greater dividends than is often appreciated. It was then, and remains today, difficult to fathom just how much latent power America had at the time. Even in 1929, America’s GDP was three times larger than that of Germany or the United Kingdom, and seven times that of Japan. Though Kagan makes a compelling argument, counterfactual histories are wonderful to consider, but impossible to prove. A broad-ranging history of America’s early evolution as a world power, a more deliberate process than is often supposed.

The book provides context and perspective about both America's internal dialogue and then entrance to World War I; what America did or did not do during the 1920's and 1930's as war approached. During this time the "America First" movement (originated approximately before WW1) - and revived itself before WW2. Much detail linking Great Britain's "appeasement" at Munich before WW2 - to Great Britain's (correct) assessment that the United States would not support them in a shooting war with Germany; and further that at that time Great Britain could not prevail in a shooting war with Germany. Reared on a Christian hope of redemption (he was, after all, the son of a Lutheran minister), Nietzsche was unable, finally, to accept a tragic sense of life of the kind he tried to retrieve in his early work. Yet his critique of liberal rationalism remains as forceful as ever. As he argued with masterful irony, the belief that the world can be made fully intelligible is an article of faith: a metaphysical wager, rather than a premise of rational inquiry. It is a thought our pious unbelievers are unwilling to allow. The pivotal modern critic of religion, Friedrich Nietzsche will continue to be the ghost at the atheist feast. The Ghost at the Feast” provides a profoundly interesting portrait of a country not yet comfortable in engaging with the wider world (at least in ways countries in Europe and Asia would have desired). America was suspicious of the pursuits of empire, yet found itself with an unintentional empire in the Philippines and Cuba, and a hemispheric policy of exclusion. America’s empire was, by virtue of it being American, different — according to Kagan. It was not meant for economic or political gain, but for the improvement and betterment of the lives of those people whom Washington governed, and to whom power would eventually be returned. Kagan's book...offers an intelligent, knowledgeable, and surprisingly balanced view of the immense contradictions that fueled America’s rise....Kagan’s treatment of the ’30s is astute."Lippmann articulated a concept that after World War II became a defining principle of U.S. foreign policy. But those that saw a larger U.S. interest in establishing and maintaining an international system based on common “western” values were to be disappointed at the end of the First World War. Wilson failed to bring the country along to this ideal, and despite the victory over Germany the U.S. simply receded, diplomatically, to its pre-war mindset of little or no involvement after the war. Kagan shows us the disaster that entailed, for the world, and for the United States. A deeply researched and exceptionally readable book about a period with which many Americans are, in practice, only cursorily familiar. Kagan offers a wealth of detail, nuance, and complexity, bringing this critical period in America’s rise to global leadership vividly to life." Kagan takes us on the road to the Second World War, and how, even with the provocations of Hitler, it was still a non-interventionist bent in American public opinion. One of the issues that has always been of interest to me has been what the world, and U.S. response, to the Nazi policies and actions against the German Jewish population had been. Kagan gives us a truly great chapter on the U.S. response to Kristallnacht, and how that vile pogrom, in 1938, impacted U.S. public opinion in a way that was detrimental to Germany. Another chapter that made this book so very interesting to me. At the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States was one of the world’s richest, most populous, and most technologically advanced nations. It was also a nation divided along numerous fault lines, with conflicting aspirations and concerns pulling it in different directions. America’s resulting intervention in World War II marked the beginning of a new era for the United States and for the world.

Kagan lays out the thesis and then supports it with pretty difficult to argue with facts. With Europe in shambles from the war new diplomatic dynamics were being established, but as mentioned Washington was absent. Now drop down one level, entering the single door that leads to Aleksis and the Meat Grinder. You can either hang around until Aleksis makes his speech, dropping him in the Meat Grinder. Or simply one shot him again with Aether on like we did with Egor and Wenjie. Stay out of line of slight with the Ethernalists and you'll remain undetected. At the dawn of the 20th century, the United States was a nation unsure about the role it wanted to play in the world, if any. Robert Kagan, New York Times best-selling author and one of the country’s most influential strategic thinkers, provides a comprehensive and historical account of America’s rise to global superpower. While many Americans preferred to avoid being drawn into what seemed an ever more competitive, conflictual, and militarized international environment, many also were eager to see the United States take a share of international responsibility and work with others to preserve peace and advance civilization. The story of American foreign policy in the first four decades of the 20th century is about the effort to do both — “to adjust the nation to its new position without sacrificing the principles developed in the past,” as one contemporary put it. Nor was Nietzsche, at bottom, a tragic thinker. His early work contained a profound interrogation of liberal rationalism, a modern view of things that contains no tragedies, only unfortunate mistakes and inspirational learning experiences. Against this banal creed, Nietzsche wanted to revive the tragic world-view of the ancient Greeks. But that world-view makes sense only if much that is important in life is fated. As understood in Greek religion and drama, tragedy requires a conflict of values that cannot be revoked by any act of will; in the mythology that Nietzsche concocted in his later writings, however, the godlike Superman, creating and destroying values as he pleases, can dissolve and nullify any tragic conflict. Then, having objected to the reconstruction of the world, and having seen the ensuing anarchy produce revolutionary imperialist dictators of Russia, Italy and Germany - we tried to protect the failure of isolation-by neutrality acts which were to keep us safe by renouncing our rights."Most Americans were on the rebels’ side from the beginning. From early 1896 on, Congress was flooded with petitions from peace groups, church groups, labor unions, and farmers’ associations calling for aid to the rebels and recognition of Cuban independence. When reports arrived of the mass starvation and disease, the popular outcry matched the response to the Armenian genocide two years before. Cuba was “our Armenia,” the editors at the San Francisco Examiner insisted. Even the conservative New York Times wrote that the “civilized world” had an interest in preventing such inhuman behavior “in Cuba as well as in Armenia.” Many Americans insisted that the United States must not “share the blood-guiltiness of Europe.”