What turns rich nations into great powers? How do wealthy countries
begin extending their influence abroad? These questions are vital to
understanding one of the most important sources of instability in
international politics: the emergence of a new power. In From Wealth
to Power, Fareed Zakaria seeks to answer these questions by examining
the most puzzling case of a rising power in modern history--that of
the United States. If rich nations routinely become great powers,
Zakaria asks, then how do we explain the strange inactivity of the
United States in the late nineteenth century? By 1885, the U.S. was
the richest country in the world. And yet, by all military, political,
and diplomatic measures, it was a minor power. To explain this
discrepancy, Zakaria considers a wide variety of cases between 1865
and 1908 when the U.S. considered expanding its influence in such
diverse places as Canada, the Dominican Republic, and Iceland.
Consistent with the realist theory of international relations, he
argues that the President and his administration tried to increase the
country's political influence abroad when they saw an increase in the
nation's relative economic power. But they frequently had to curtail
their plans for expansion, he shows, because they lacked a strong
central government that could harness that economic power for the
purposes of foreign policy. America was an unusual power--a strong
nation with a weak state. It was not until late in the century, when
power shifted from states to the federal government and from the
legislative to the executive branch, that leaders in Washington could
mobilize the nation's resources for international influence. Zakaria's
exploration of this tension between national power and state structure
will change how we view the emergence of new powers and deepen our
understanding of America's exceptional history.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781400829187
Publisert
2013
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter