Estrangement: America and the World

"The United States is estranged from the world--separate, aloof, more alone than even the most cynical of pessimistic observers might have predicted in the heyday of American postwar power," Sanford Ungar writes. The United States is today at greater odds with its major adversary, less united with its former allies, and more deeply troubled by its relationships with nations of the Third World. The unease is also deeply felt inside the United States. It is a phenomenon that extends across party and ideological lines. This book explores the reasons for that estrangement. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on the occasion of its seventy-fifth anniversary, invited a dozen leading scholars, foreign commentators, journalists, and former public officials to explore the symptoms, causes and long-range effects of this estrangement. Each writer takes as a point of departure a single event or idea that was central to America's experience at a particular moment; but the authors move backward and forward in time to explain their themes. Whether discussing the Arab oil embargo or the Iranian revolution or Afghanistan and the collapse of detente, these experts cast familiar episodes in postwar American foreign policy in an entirely new and revealing light. Their varied and contrasting perspectives will be an important contribution to the American and international debate on world affairs for years to come. About the AuthorK: Sanford J. Ungar, former host of "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio, is now a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Ungar, Sanford J. is the author of 'Estrangement: America and the World' with ISBN 9780195037074 and ISBN 0195037073.