Most Americans admire the determination and drive of artists, athletes, and CEOs, but they seem to despise similar ambition in their elected officials. The structure of political representation and the separation of powers detailed in the United States Constitution were intended to restrain self-interested ambition. Because not all citizens have a desire to rule, republican democracies must choose leaders from pools of ambitious candidates while trying to prevent those same people from exploiting public power to dominate the less ambitious. Ambition in America: Political Power and the Collapse of Citizenship is an engaging examination of this rarely studied yet significant phenomenon. Author Jeffrey A. Becker explores how American political institutions have sought to guide, inspire, and constrain citizens' ambitions to power. Detailing the Puritans' government by "moral community," the Founders' attempts to curtail ambition, the influence of Jacksonian populism, and twentieth-century party politics, Becker presents an unfolding drama that culminates in a spirited discussion of the deficiencies in the current political system.This groundbreaking work reassesses the value and role of ambition in politics in order to identify the beliefs and practices that threaten self-government, as well as those that can strengthen democratic politics.

Westerners seem united in the belief that China has emerged as a major economic power and that this success will most likely continue indefinitely. But they are less certain about the future of China's political system. China's steps toward free market capitalism have led many outsiders to expect increased democratization and a more Western political system. The Chinese, however, have developed their own version of capitalism. Westerners view Chinese politics through the lens of their own ideologies, preventing them from understanding Chinese goals and policies.In Contemporary Chinese Political Thought: Debates and Perspectives, Fred Dallmayr and Zhao Tingyang bring together leading Chinese intellectuals to debate the main political ideas shaping the rapidly changing nation. Investigating such topics as the popular "China Model", the resurgence of Chinese Confucianism and its applications to the modern world, and liberal socialism, the contributors move beyond usual analytical frameworks toward what Dallmayr and Zhao call "a dismantling of ideological straitjackets." Comprising a broad range of opinions and perspectives, Contemporary Chinese Political Thought is the most up-to-date examination in English of modern Chinese political attitudes and discourse.Features contributions from Ji Wenshun, Zhou Lian, Zhao Tingyang, Zhang Feng, Liu Shuxian, Chen Ming, He Baogang, Ni Peimin, Ci Jiwei, Cui Zhiyuan, Frank Fang, Wang Shaoguang, and Cheng Guangyun.

Thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan rode a wave of patriotism to the White House by calling for a return to what he considered to be traditional American values--personal liberty, free markets, and limited government. After the cultural struggles and generational clashes of the 1960s and 70s, it appeared that many Americans were eager to abide by Reagan's set of core American principles. Yet, despite Reagan's continuing popularity, modern America remains widely perceived as a nation weakened by its divisions. While debates over cultural values have been common throughout the country's history, they seem particularly vitriolic today. Some argue that these differences have resulted in a perpetually gridlocked government caught between left and right, red states and blue. Since the American Founding, commonly shared cultural values have been considered to be the glue that would bind the nation's citizens together. However, how do we identify, define and interpret the foundations of American culture in a profoundly divided, pluralistic country?In American Culture in Peril, Charles W. Dunn assembles top scholars and public intellectuals to examine Reagan's impact on American culture in the twenty-first century. The contributors assess topics vital to our conversations about American culture and society, including changing views of the family, the impact of popular culture, and the evolving relationship between religion, communities, and the state. Others investigate modern liberalism and the possibilities of reclaiming a renewed conservatism today. American Culture in Peril illuminates Reagan's powerful legacy and investigates whether his traditional view of American culture can successfully compete in postmodern America.ContributorsHadley ArkesPaul A. CantorAllan CarlsonJean Bethke ElshtainCharles R. KeslerWilfred M. McClayKen Myers

Between 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson defined affirmative action as a legitimate federal goal, and 1972, when President Richard M. Nixon named one of affirmative action's chief antagonists the head of the Department of Labor, government officials at all levels addressed racial economic inequality in earnest. Providing members of historically disadvantaged groups an equal chance at obtaining limited and competitive positions, affirmative action had the potential to alienate large numbers of white Americans, even those who had viewed school desegregation and voting rights in a positive light. Thus, affirmative action was -- and continues to be -- controversial.Novel in its approach and meticulously researched, David Hamilton Golland's Constructing Affirmative Action: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity bridges a sizeable gap in the literature on the history of affirmative action. Golland examines federal efforts to diversify the construction trades from the 1950s through the 1970s, offering valuable insights into the origins of affirmative action--related policy. Constructing Affirmative Action analyzes how community activism pushed the federal government to address issues of racial exclusion and marginalization in the construction industry with programs in key American cities.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Texas was rocked by a series of political transitions. Despite its century-long heritage of solidly Democratic politics, the state became a Republican stronghold virtually overnight, and by 1980 it was known as "Reagan Country." Ultimately, Republicans dominated the Texas political landscape, holding all twenty-seven of its elected offices and carrying former governor George W. Bush to his second term as president with more than 61 percent of the Texas vote.Sean P. Cunningham examines the remarkable history of Republican Texas in Cowboy Conservatism: Texas and the Rise of the Modern Right. Utilizing extensive research drawn from the archives of four presidential libraries, gubernatorial papers, local campaign offices, and oral histories, Cunningham presents a compelling narrative of the most notable regional genesis of modern conservatism. Spanning the decades from Kennedy's assassination to Reagan's presidency, Cunningham reveals a vivid portrait of modern conservatism in one of the nation's largest and most politically powerful states. The newest title in the New Directions in Southern History series, Cunningham's Cowboy Conservatism demonstrates Texas's distinctive and vital contributions to the transformation of postwar American politics.

Is the United States Congress dead, alive, or trapped in a moribund cycle? When confronted with controversial policy issues, members of Congress struggle to satisfy conflicting legislative, representative, and oversight duties. These competing goals, along with the pressure to satisfy local constituents, cause members of Congress to routinely cede power on a variety of policies, express regret over their loss of control, and later return to the habit of delegating their power. This pattern of institutional ambivalence undermines conventional wisdom about congressional party resurgence, the power of oversight, and the return of the so-called imperial presidency.In Congressional Ambivalence, Jasmine Farrier examines Congress's frequent delegation of power by analyzing primary source materials such as bills, committee reports, and the Congressional Record. Farrier demonstrates that Congress is caught between abdication and ambition and that this ambivalence affects numerous facets of the legislative process.Explaining specific instances of post-delegation disorder, including Congress's use of new bills, obstruction, public criticism, and oversight to salvage its lost power, Farrier exposes the tensions surrounding Congress's roles in recent hot-button issues such as base-closing commissions, presidential trade promotion authority, and responses to the attacks of September 11. She also examines shifting public rhetoric used by members of Congress as they emphasize, in institutionally self-conscious terms, the difficulties of balancing their multiple roles. With a deep understanding of the inner workings of the federal government, Farrier illuminates a developing trend in the practice of democracy.

In this most timely book, Richard C. Lukas offers the historical perspective that any reader, scholar, or layman needs to grasp the political turmoil in Poland in the decades after World War II. Bitter Legacy is the first major analysis of Polish-American relations from the Potsdam Conference through the Polish elections of 1947, the critical period during which Poland became a satellite in the Russian sphere. Drawing on an impressive array of primary and secondary sources, a number of which have never been used by scholars before, Lukas shows in detail why and how American policy was never able to reverse the process, begun at the Yalta Conference, that transformed Poland into a communist state. In a clear and unambiguous style, he deftly combines two traditions in the writing of diplomatic history -- one that stresses intergovernmental relations and one that emphasizes domestic concerns and pressures.The result is a revealing book that adds significantly to our understanding of Polish-American relations and of domestic history in Poland and the United States during this important Cold War phase. It will appeal not only to scholars but also to all those with an interest in Poland's history.Bitter Legacy is a sequel to Lukas's earlier volume, The Strange Allies, which has been acclaimed as the best treatment in English of United States-Polish relations during World War II. If offers the same impeccable scholarship and balanced interpretation that characterized Lukas's earlier study.

No general history of southern farming since the end of slavery has been published until now. For the first time, Gilbert C. Fite has drawn together the many threads that make up commercial agricultural development in the eleven states of the old Confederacy, to explain why agricultural change was so slow in the South, and then to show how the agents of change worked after 1933 to destroy the old and produce a new agriculture. Fite traces the decline and departure of King Cotton as the hard taskmaster of the region, and the replacement of cotton by a somewhat more democratically rewarding group of farm products: poultry, cattle, swine; soybeans; citrus and other fruits; vegetables; rice; dairy products; and forest products. He shows how such crop changes were related to other developments, such as the rise of a capital base in the South, mainly after World War II; technological innovation in farming equipment; and urbanization and regional population shifts.Based largely upon primary sources, Cotton Fields No More will become the standard work on post-Civil War agriculture in the South. It will be welcomed by students of the American South and of United States agriculture, economic, and social history.

One of the most renowned Washington insiders of the twentieth century, Clark Clifford (1906--1998) was a top advisor to four Democratic presidents. As a powerful corporate attorney, he advised Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. As special counsel to Truman, Clifford helped to articulate the Truman Doctrine, grant recognition to Israel, create the Marshall Plan, and build the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After winning the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination, Kennedy asked Clifford to analyze the problems he would face in taking over the executive branch and later appointed him chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Johnson named Clifford secretary of defense in 1968, but their warm relationship was strained when Clifford concluded that there was no plan for victory in the Vietnam War and that the United States was in a "bottomless pit." Even Carter, who kept his distance from Washington insiders, turned to Clifford for help. In Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington, John Acacia chronicles Clifford's rise from midwestern lawyer to Washington power broker and presidential confidant. He covers the breadth and span of Clifford's involvement in numerous pivotal moments of American history, providing a window to the inner workings of the executive office. Drawing from a wealth of sources, the author reveals Clifford's role as one of the most trusted advisors in American history and as a primary architect of cold war foreign policy.

When Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, China symbolically asserted its role as an emerging world power -- a position it is not likely to relinquish anytime soon. China's growing economy, military reforms, and staggering productivity have contributed to its ascendancy as a major player in international affairs. Western scholars have attempted to explain Chinese foreign policy using historical or theoretical evidence, but until this volume, few studies from a Chinese perspective have been published in English. In Challenges to Chinese Foreign Policy: Diplomacy, Globalization, and the Next World Power, editors Yufan Hao, C. X. George Wei, and Lowell Dittmer reveal how Chinese scholars view their nation's rise to global dominance. Drawing from a wealth of foreign relations experts including scholars native to the region, this volume examines the unique challenges China faces as it adapts in its role as a world leader, and it analyzes how China's evolving international relationships are shaping the global landscape of the twenty-first century.

Blood in the Sand is Stephen Eric Bronner's powerful critique of the current state of American foreign and domestic policy, ranging from the government's initial response to 9/11 and the assault on Afghanistan through the Iraqi War and the ramifications of the Israeli--Palestinian conflict. Bronner, who just months before the war began spent time in Iraq as part of a peace delegation, examines the state of twenty-first century America, a nation in which security against future terrorist attacks has become an obsession, "moral values" have turned into a slogan, and belief in the right to engage in a preemptive strike has come to define foreign policy. In Blood in the Sand, Bronner develops a bold new framework for a modern democratic foreign policy. In doing so, he passionately warns of the consequences of failure to alter the current course of events in America: extreme economic inequalities of power, political authoritarianism, imperialist ambitions, and an increasingly constrained cultural climate.

In this provocative interpretation of New Deal diplomacy, Howard Jablon challenges the view that the State Department was wiser and more expert at international maneuver than was President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early years of his presidency. These were years of growing world tension, with the preliminary shots of World War II being fired as Japan took over Manchuria, Italy made Ethiopia an extension of its new Roman Empire, and all the European great powers tried out their new weaponry in Spain. The author argues that the department's advice in this period actually led to unfortunate decisions which later had a considerable impact on events leading to World War II.Former Secretary of State Cordell Hull wrote in his memoirs that the United States was at the "oriental crossroads of decision" in 1934. Hull and his colleagues in the State Department did not suggest blocking the Japanese. Instead, they recommended continuing the ineffective nonrecognition policy. Consequently, the roads taken by American diplomacy at this and other junctures were equally unfortunate.To date no one has criticized the influence of the State Department on New Deal diplomacy. Crossroads of Decision represents a timely and important contribution to our understanding of both the State Department and foreign policy in this interwar period of rapid change, when diplomatic courses were set that allowed for no turning back.

David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, proclaimed the Small Business Administration a "billion-dollar waste -- a rathole," and set out to abolish the agency. His scathing critique was but the latest attack on an agency better known as the "Small Scandal Administration." Loans to criminals, government contracts for minority "fronts," the classification of American Motors as a small business, Whitewater, and other scandals -- the Small Business Administration has lurched from one embarrassment to another. Despite the scandals and the policy failures, the SBA thrives and small business remains a sacred cow in American politics. Part of this sacredness comes from the agency's longstanding record of pioneering affirmative action. Jonathan Bean reveals that even before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the SBA promoted African American businesses, encouraged the hiring of minorities, and monitored the employment practices of loan recipients. Under Nixon, the agency expanded racial preferences. During the Reagan administration, politicians wrapped themselves in the mantle of minority enterprise even as they denounced quotas elsewhere.Created by Congress in 1953, the SBA does not conform to traditional interpretations of interest-group democracy. Even though the public -- and Congress -- favors small enterprise, there has never been a unified group of small business owners requesting the government's help. Indeed, the SBA often has failed to address the real problems of "Mom and Pop" shop owners, fueling the ongoing debate about the agency's viability.

When the first edition of America Recommitted was published in 1991, the world was passing through a period of sweeping political and social change. The Cold War was over; China had reverted to harsh authoritarian rule; U.S. -led forces were deployed in Saudi Arabia for potential military action against Iraq; the Soviet Union was on the verge of disintegration; and the unraveling of Yugoslavia had set the stage for brutal ethnic conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo.In the midst of this widespread upheaval, the United States reassessed its own role as the sole remaining superpower--a process that continues today. This new edition features three new chapters that assess U.

Since the 1930s, appeasement has been labeled as a futile and possibly dangerous policy. In this landmark study, Stephen Rock seeks to restore appeasement to its proper place as a legitimate--and potentially successful--diplomatic strategy. Appeasement was discredited by Neville Chamberlain's disastrous attempt to satisfy Adolf Hitler's territorial ambitions and avoid war in 1938. Rock argues, however, that there is very little evidence to support the belief that dissatisfied states and their leaders cannot be appeased or that appeasement undermines a state's credibility in later attempts at deterrence.Rock looks at five case studies from the past 100 years, revealing under what conditions appeasement can achieve its goals. From British appeasement of the United States near the beginning of the twentieth century to American conciliation of North Korea in the early 1990s, Rock concludes that appeasement succeeds or fails depending on the nature of the adversary, the nature of the inducements used on the antagonist, and the existence of other incentives for the adversary to acquiesce. Appeasement in International Politics suggests the type of appeasement strategy most appropriate for various situations. The options range from pure inducements, reciprocity, to a mixture of inducements and threats. In addition to this theoretical framework, Rock's explicit comparison of appeasement and deterrence offers important guidelines for policymakers on when and how to implement a strategy of appeasement.At a time when the strategy of engagement plays an increasingly central--and controversial--role in U.S. foreign policy, Appeasement in International Politics reestablishes the long-discredited use of inducements as an effective means of preventing conflict.

On November 16, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov signed an agreement establishing diplomatic ties between the United States and the Soviet Union. Two days later Roosevelt named the first of five ambassadors he would place in Moscow between 1933 and 1945. Caught between Roosevelt and Stalin tells the dramatic and important story of these ambassadors and their often contentious relationships with the two most powerful men in the world.More than fifty years after his death, Roosevelt's foreign policy, especially regarding the Soviet Union, remains a subject of intense debate. Dennis Dunn offers an ambitious new appraisal of the apparent confusion and contradiction in Roosevelt's policy one moment publicizing the four freedoms and the Atlantic Charter and the next moment giving tacit approval to Stalin's control of parts of Eastern Europe and northeast Asia.Dunn argues that "Rooseveltism," the president's belief that the Soviet Union and the United States were both developing into modern social democracies, blinded Roosevelt to the true nature of Stalin's brutal dictatorship despite repeated warnings from his ambassadors in Moscow. Focusing on the ambassadors themselves, William C. Bullitt, Joseph E. Davies, Laurence A. Steinhardt, William C. Standley, and W. Averell Harriman, Dunn details their bruising arguments with Roosevelt over the president's repeated concessions to Stalin.Using information uncovered during extensive research in the Soviet archives, Dunn reveals much about Stalin's policy toward the United States and demonstrates that in ignoring his ambassadors' good advice, Roosevelt appeased the Soviet leader unnecessarily. Sure to generate new discussion concerning the origins of the Cold War, this controversial assessment of Roosevelt's failed Soviet policy will be read for years to come.