Two recent books recounting – and eulogizing – America's receding political hegemony show how the Cold War embedded the country's value commitments and cultural innovation in its "brand" and why victory has led to retreat. A society that no longer knows what it stands for has little to share with the rest of the world.
NEW YORK/VIENNA – When the post-Cold War world was still in its infancy, there was a palpable sense of excitement about history’s potential end. But lurking in the world’s collective subconscious was an abiding uncertainty about the shape of things to come. “Without the Cold War,” wondered John Updike’s character Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom as the “long-twilight struggle” between capitalism and communism was winding down, “what’s the point of being an American?”
Ben Rhodes, After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, Random House, 2021.
NEW YORK/VIENNA – When the post-Cold War world was still in its infancy, there was a palpable sense of excitement about history’s potential end. But lurking in the world’s collective subconscious was an abiding uncertainty about the shape of things to come. “Without the Cold War,” wondered John Updike’s character Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom as the “long-twilight struggle” between capitalism and communism was winding down, “what’s the point of being an American?”