The Ghost at the Feast

America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941

Robert Kagan

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9781805463054
• eBook ISBN:
  9781805463061
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

An NPR Book of the Year At the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States was one of the world's richest, most populous, most technologically advanced nations. It was also a nation divided along numerous fault lines, with conflicting aspirations and concerns pulling it in different directions. And it was a nation unsure about the role it wanted to play in the world, if any. Americans were the beneficiaries of a global order they had no responsibility for maintaining. Many preferred to avoid being drawn into what seemed an ever more competitive, conflictual, and militarized international environment. However, many also were eager to see the United States taking a share of international responsibility, working with others to preserve peace and advance civilization. The story of American foreign policy in the first four decades of the twentieth century is about the effort to do both - "to adjust the nation to its new position without sacrificing the principles developed in the past, " as one contemporary put it. This would prove a difficult task. The collapse of British naval power, combined with the rise of Germany and Japan, suddenly placed the United States in a pivotal position. American military power helped defeat Germany in the First World War, and the peace that followed was significantly shaped by a U.S. president. But Americans recoiled from their deep involvement in world affairs, and for the next two decades, they sat by as fascism and tyranny spread unchecked, ultimately causing the liberal world order to fall apart. America's resulting intervention in the Second World War marked the beginning of a new era, for the United States and for the world. Brilliant and insightful, The Ghost at the Feast shows both the perils of American withdrawal from the world and the price of international responsibility.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Maps
• Introduction
• 1. A Tale of Two Wars
• 2. Empire Without “Imperialism”; Imperialism Without “Empire”
• 3. Collapse of the Nineteenth-Century World Order
• 4. The European War and American Neutrality
• 5. Schrechlichkeit and the Submarine War
• 6. “He Kept Us Out of War”
• 7. The Path to War
• 8. America Declares War
• 9. America and the “War to End All Wars”
• 10. The Great War Ends
• 11. America and the European Peace
• 12. Wilson and the League Fight
• 13. A Return to “Normalcy”?
• 14. The Collapse of Europe and the Rise of Hitler
• 15. Toward a New Order in Asia
• 16. The Manchurian Crisis
• 17. The Fascist Challenge
• 18. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Isolationist
• 19. The United States and Appeasement
• 20. Kristallnacht and Its Effect on American Policy
• 21. Blitzkrieg and America’s “Great Debate”
• 22. Accelerating Toward War
• 23. The United States Enters the War
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index