BRANDON CROCKER: God Save the Anglosphere
Mead, Walter Russell
God Save the Anglosphere B o o k s I n R e v I e w Carter struggled throughout the 1976 campaign and his presidency with reconciling the increasingly incommensurable demands of both...
...Liberal democracy and capitalism upset the existing political and cultural orders of other states...
...in late April...
...Mead tries to draw parallels between Oliver Cromwell and Ronald Reagan (both believed that God was on their side and that their countries’ enemies were evil...
...25 or pylesp@spectator.org...
...But was Reagan (and his Anglo the sensitivities of other nations and more open to ally, Margaret Thatcher) wrong in nonetheless purtheir complaints and criticisms...
...While Hudson writes about Msgr...
...Each can lead to disaster if unchecked by the other two...
...foreign policy...
...He wanted to sign it and have a Jeremy Lott is author of The Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency (Thomas picture taken with me...
...As Mead notes, this analysis misses a key element of Anglo-American society...
...In laying out how to do this, Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S...
...They see the United States as a sterile, amoral, materialistic country...
...good review...
...The Islamic world, for one, hasn’t bought into this brighter view of capitalist change...
...It’s worth mentioning that unlike his predecessor Gerald Ford, who declined the opportunity, in December 1977 Carter signed the Hyde Amendment into law...
...of the main themes of that symphony would be per- Echoing the work of fect for the soundtrack to the science fiction space flick Alien...
...Indeed, Hudson’s book is superior to recent popular titles in this genre—Kevin Phillips’s American Theocracy, Randall Balmer’s Thy Kingdom Come, and Damon Linker’s The Theocons...
...Understanding anti-Americanism, or “Waspophobia” as Walter Russell Mead calls some of its manifestations, is one of the goals of his thoughtprovoking and ambitious book God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World...
...Similarly, most Americans, who view the United States overall as a beneficent world power, are surprised to find that many people outside our borders see things quite differently...
...pares society to a gyroscope hovering above the top of a three-sided pyramid...
...Anglo-Americans see the spreading of liberal democracy and capitalism through the “maritime order” as a good thing, benefiting all...
...It’s quite another to deal with the concrete complexities of the real, here-and-now world...
...Not only does growing American power threaten proud former world powers with irrelevance, but America is also viewed by even many of our allies as an economic and cultural competitor...
...Onward, Christian Soldiers contains too many insights and too much honesty...
...The world turns into a big mall, and we all go shopping: forever...
...The mass protests in Euro W g r o e G n o p m s d e m l foreign policy principles enunciated by the ing new, and cannot be a c i r e m A o e i l i D ead challenges americans to adopt the cal Am s er k ican i f nterests...
...I view them, as well as several Catholic bosses of the era, as Catholics operating less from a secular ideology and more from contemporary Catholic social thought...
...Whereas the Anglo-Americans and other technologically advanced countries had generations to adapt to the dislocations and cultural challenges posed by these great changes, many areas of the developing world, such as Africa and the Middle East, are trying to deal with multiple waves of technolog ical advances over the course of a few years...
...This is a baseball game, not a photo The inscription reads, . e t l o s l h t e ev a u b own in front...
...turn the economic energy of that society out into world trade...
...The American Spectator Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and our federal tax identification number is 23-7002632...
...Mead sums up this snooty critique thus: After all the fire and storm of the historical process, the struggles between good and evil, progress and reaction, the long and difficult climb from barbarism and slavery up into the light of civilization and finally of free civil society, at last and at length we struggle up to the peak of the mountain to encounter the culmination of generations of human striving: Homer Simpson.… [L]ike the inhabitants of John Lennon’s imagined utopia, [we have] “nothing to kill or die for...
...The rise of England (and later the United States) came about, to use the words of the English historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, due to “the auspicious union of order and freedom...
...Our “cameraman” fiddled with the camera function on the PDA, and Bill Press—the former Crossfire co-host, former chairman of the California Democratic Party, and current host of a radio show on something called XM—also shrank down...
...open the global system to others, even to potential competitors in time of peace...
...I’d been reading it on the Metro ride over to have a go at it for this journal of high democratic ideals...
...7 2 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R J u n e 2 0 0 8...
...After all, he had Dop...
...turn the system against one’s opponents in war...
...The laissez-faire philosophy of Smith found more fertile ground in England and America than it did in continental Europe...
...Mead seeks to explain the Anglo-American rise to world economic and military dominance, and what that dominance means for U.S...
...The Slaughterhouse Don’t Press Your Luck I hesitated, then sat down hard...
...Though we should take the concerns of other nations seriously, is it America’s fault that its national interests don’t always align with those of France...
...protect commerce throughout the world and defend the balance of power in the world’s chief geopolitical theaters...
...Bill Press...
...People who have not been in the vanguard of technological advances are now having decades, or even centuries worth, of technology dumped on them...
...Many Europeans do not see a strong America as being in their best interest...
...This tension will necessarily be part of America’s relationship with Europe and other parts of the world regardless of who is in the White House, unless that person accedes to the proposition that America needs to bind its actions to the will of the EU or the UN...
...When I told him I was Nats over Cubs...
...The American Spectator Foundation, 1611 North Kent Street, Suite 901 Arlington, VA 22209 For further information please contact Patrick Pyles, Director of Development, at 703-807-2011 ext...
...Specifically, Americans need over the Reagan administration’s policies toward the to understand that states, particularly a large and Soviet Union were as large as anything seen during powerful one like the U.S., must be more cognizant of the past few years...
...There’s nothing quite like Lou losing it, kicking dirt at the umpires, and maybe stealing a base or two on the way out...
...The same goes for the Arab world...
...MProtestant theologian and political theo- Bush’s foreign policy...
...God Save the Anglosphere B o o k s I n R e v I e w Carter struggled throughout the 1976 campaign and his presidency with reconciling the increasingly incommensurable demands of both constituencies...
...It is not driven merely out of a desire for consumption and the acquisition of material goods...
...Worse, (John Wiley & son, 256 pages, $24.95) it was early enough in the season that Chicago man- Reviewed by Jeremy Lott ager Lou Piniella couldn’t be bothered to tie Bobby Cox for most managerial ejections...
...We can do a lot more listening, as Mead suggests, but the power of the militant Islamists is not going to be undercut by a more “understanding” America (the 9/11 attacks were conceived during the Clinton years) and they will only stop hating America when America adopts Sharia and cuts ties with that “Zionist Entity...
...Many foreign (and domestic) intellectuals also decry the sort of society liberal democratic capitalism creates...
...Egyptian writer 7 0 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R J u n e 2 0 0 8 B o o k s I n R e v I e w Tareq Hilmi explained, “We worship God by hating America...
...After wading through this initial clunkiness, though, the reader is rewarded with some much finer, engaging writing, and some excellent analysis...
...authority...
...When Press got up to head back toward the men’s, I waved it at him, and his eyes lit up like Christmas tree lights...
...The game was low- scoring enough a point...
...Of course, the governments of many developing countries have an incentive to blame their ills on some outside force—and the U.S...
...Support The American Spectator in Your Will One of the best ways to ensure future generations have access to a powerful voice in conservative journalism is by including The American Spectator Foundation in your will...
...Perhaps he has never heard a speech by Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...
...This has kept Anglo-American society dynamic yet shielded it from the evils of extremism...
...Mead seems to be arguing that believing that God (or at least right) is on our side, and that our enemies are evil, is a uniquely Anglo-American trait...
...It was to almost justify it: 2-0 Trainwreck: The end of the Conservative Revolution one of those games that (and not a Moment Too soon) couldn’t even manage to By Bill Press be a pitchers’ duel...
...But this is the stuff of shallow John Kerry stump speeches, or maybe boilerplate by Barack Obama (who claims to have been influenced by Niebuhr’s writings...
...yelled one guy a few rows rev t w iew s n ing it r for e T e he s p Am i erica F n Sp J ectat m or y , he v gulp t e d a a small joke before he got to his seat: “You’re not reading my book...
...It’s one thing to talk about pyramids and gyroscopes and use over-simplified analogies to give a more or less accurate view of big picture history...
...America’s challenge is to protect and maintain the maritime order while averting a catastrophic clash with the Islamic world...
...Mead holds Jimmy Carter and Adlai Stevenson as great examples of proper Niebuhrian spirit...
...Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, demonstrates that he is much more skilled at analyzing the big trends of the past than he is with detailing workable policies for the present...
...Mead maintains that the politics of modern societies are based on three competing belief systems: reason, religion, and tradition...
...To tell the Gandhis and Rodney Kings of this world, “No, we cannot all just get along...
...It has just that it has been less willing than, say, Jimmy Carter, to allow those criticisms to trump legitimate and critiLet Your Legacy Be One of Freedom...
...To some of these people, the bringer of these changes—most often identified with the United States—is not a beneficent power, but an evil one...
...Mead proposes neither, but expresses optimism that with a little more understanding and patience from the U.S., Islam will eventually accept capitalism, and possibly even liberal democracy...
...George W. Bush, argues Mead, has unnecessarily weakened our alliances with Europe by his unilateral and haughty actions, and being too quick to remind the members of “Old Europe” that they are no longer great and powerful countries...
...To throw that ball a bit inside to keep the batters from getting too comfortable in the box...
...Press’s writing is at least clean and tart, Nelson...
...There is more to the Anglo-American success story than the free minds and free markets working in a tempered political atmosphere...
...That’s why I think it deserves a wide hearing from conservative and religious right activists, politicians, and, yes, fair-minded readers...
...J u n e 2 0 0 8 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R 7 1 B o o k s I n R e v I e w suing policies that led to the peaceful collapse of the Soviet empire...
...This is an awful idea...
...Mead writes that this regime remains “the key to world power”: Develop and maintain an open, dynamic society at home...
...The fact is, the Bush administration has been mindful of European concerns and criticisms...
...At the birth of the Industrial Revolution, the government of Great god and gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World By Walter Russell Mead (alfred a. knopf, 464 pages, $27.95) Max Weber, Mead, the son of an Episcopal priest, also explains the role of English Protestantism in promoting capitalist vigor in England and the United States, by making society more receptive to the idea that change is good and part of God’s plan, and more patient with the workings of 6 8 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R J u n e 2 0 0 8 Reviewed by Brandon crocker B o o k s I n R e v I e w Adam Smith’s “invisible hand...
...Coming back, he made i e i G . e r e r o “ back...
...We never could get it to take the picture...
...The ventures of British entrepreneurs So imagine my surprise when a few years later I dis- were not dependent on first covered that someone in Hollywood thought that one winning royal favor...
...Press asked where I was from and how I’d acquired his book...
...From this Anglo-American success has sprung animosity from others...
...He comMead maintains that the politics of modern societies are based on three competing belief systems: reason, religion, and tradition...
...This ideology animated the Democratic Party when its constituencies were formed into the New Deal or Roosevelt coalition and many Catholic bishops today...
...Fortunately, Mead’s lecture on contemporary foreign policy is almost as brief as it is unconvincing, and should not be a reason for avoiding this otherwise engaging and well-written book...
...Mead argues that the Anglo-American gyroscope has moved back and forth toward each of the pyramid’s three sides (reason, religion, and tradition) but has never fallen off the top and down the side where one view dominates...
...Finally, Hudson slights religious centrists and the orthodox—those who believe in cultural conservatism and economic liberalism or populism...
...Otion is to help cultivate the much-neglecte c e s s i h t f o t n i o p e h t t u B e h i v s s s e h P , r sor ’ ry ad , the c e book re . . How I wish I could follow d - vituperative arts...
...is an attractive target...
...Besides, the book is not much to get worked up about...
...I agreed with that assessment...
...We were at a Washington Nationals game in D.C...
...Many people are struggling to adapt and are resentful and resistant...
...And he could easily be misinterpreted as suggesting that the enemies of the AngloAmericans over the past century—the Nazis, the Soviet Union, al Qaeda—were evil not in fact, but only in Anglo-American perception...
...My friend, the would-be cameraman who would probably rather go unnamed here, had spotted Press a few rows down and to the right, and I just happened to have his latest book, Trainwreck: The End of the Conservative Revo lution (and Not a Moment Too Soon), in my lap...
...promote liberal values and institutions wherever one can...
...The militant Islamists have targeted the West, and the United States in particular, precisely because they see us as culturally corrupt, and corrupting...
...Those faults, however, are not fatal...
...But others don’t want it...
...M a r t e g i l d d e m a y b d r e p m ha y r e v o t o n e e w a , i t n a o r l s n t i “ a . o N y n o h p describe H 2 ow s ard n H e an e so y n’s m great c Sym nd - Eu r ropean riva l ls . British e indu stry and n com c m n erce s t i f o y n a m n t d e z l a t n e c s s e d n a r e k a e w s a w any years ago I heard a radio disc jockey Britain was stron l g enough r to i main ha tain order, bu t it l intensely American...
...Brandon crocker is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator online living in San Diego...
...The British, and then the Americans, following in the footsteps of the Dutch, established a worldwide system of investment and trade, built on sea power (the “maritime order...
...The first chapters are a bit clumsy...
...AngloAmericans have subscribed to what Mead fancifully calls “the protocols of the elders of Greenwich...
...Rather, the capitalist system that the Anglo-Americans have mastered fulfills the strong desire in human nature to change, to create, to improve, and to build knowledge...
...John Ryan and Dorothy Day, he states they belonged to the social gospel, social justice wing of the Catholic Church...
...b in a Europ i ean ly circles is n e ot p h e - . rist Reinhold Niebuhr...
Vol. 41 • June 2008 • No. 5
