Ark of the Liberties: Why American Freedom Matters to the World - Softcover

Widmer, Ted

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0809027496 ISBN 13: 9780809027491

Publisher: Hill and Wang, 2009

Synopsis

In a sweeping history of centuries, Ted Widmer's Ark of the Liberties recounts America's ambition to be the world's guarantor of liberty.

The United States stands at a historic crossroads; essential to the world yet unappreciated. America's decline in popularity over the decades has been nothing short of astonishing. With wit, brilliance, and deep affection, Ted Widmer, a scholar and a former presidential speechwriter, reminds everyone why this great nation had so far to fall. It is a success story that America, and the world, forgets at its peril.

From the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United States, for all its shortfalls, has been by far the world's greatest advocate for freedom. Generations of founders imbued America with a surprisingly global ambition that a series of remarkable presidents, often Democratic, advanced through the confident wielding of military and economic power.

Ark of the Liberties brims with new insights: America's centuries-long favorable relationship with the Middle East; why Wilson's presidency deserves reappraisal; Bill Clinton's underappreciated achievements; how America's long history of foreign policy immediately touches on the choices we face. Fully addressing America's disastrous occupation of Iraq, Ark of the Liberties colorfully narrates America's long and laudatory history of expanding world liberty.

About this title

About the Author

Ted Widmer directs the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He was a foreign policy speechwriter and senior adviser to President Clinton, and is Senior Research Fellow of the New America Foundation. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Observer.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hill and Wang
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809027496
• ISBN 13: 9780809027491
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384