For most of the twentieth century, Americans viewed their country as part of a common Western culture rooted in European Enlightenment ideas of freedom and self-governance, as well as in the heritage of classical Greece and Rome. The visionary portrayal of Western freedom guided America's foreign affairs, from the crusades of the world wars to strategic alliances with Europe during the Cold War against the communist East. Today, however, other ideas shape American foreign policy: on one side, the pursuit of a universal 'liberal international order', and on the other, the anti-nationalist nationalism of 'America First'. In the book "The Exceeding of the West," historian Michael Kimmage traces the rise and decline of the West in American foreign policy since the 1890s and argues that the revival of the West today is essential for promoting national unity and resisting new geopolitical threats.

The roots of America's affinity with the West run deep, from the acceptance of Columbus as a national hero to the neoclassical design of the nation's capital. After World War I, despite Woodrow Wilson's failed attempts to persuade Americans to take the lead in the West, American universities promoted new curricula on Western cultural heritage. By 1945, after World War II, the West was the dominant concept in American foreign policy. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy promoted the bipolar plan to save the West from the Soviet East during the Cold War. Then, this consensus unraveled. With the Vietnam War and the rights revolutions of the 1960s, the left raised new questions about the West's connection to empire and white supremacy. The right proposed a closer, more religious view of the West, almost equally critical of liberals at home as of communists abroad. After the end of the Cold War, Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama increasingly avoided invoking the West, instead seeking to create liberal democracies everywhere. Donald Trump has largely rejected the Western ideals of freedom, embracing authoritarian leaders and undermining Western institutions like NATO.

"The Exceeding of the West" ends with a defense of the West as a framework for American foreign affairs today. Despite its past weaknesses, Kimmage argues that the revival of the West is essential for restoring a foreign policy rooted in freedom and self-governance and resisting the authoritarianism of Russia and China. Here at home, a renewed and expansive West can offer an inspired alternative to identity politics from both the right and the left. Sweeping and filled with rich insights, "The Exceeding of the West" is an urgent portrait of modern America's search for identity and its emergence as a superpower, revealing the roads at the crossroads where the country now stands.

Pages: 384, Year of Publication: 0630, Dimensions: 15.8x15.8cm