With or Against the World?

James W. Skillen (Ph.D., Duke, Political Science) is president of the Center for Public Justice, an Annapolis, Maryland-based independent civic education and policy research organization that grounds its research, publications, training, and advocacy in a comprehensive Christian political perspective.

• Chapter 1 PrefaceChapter 2 AcknowledgementsChapter 4 Did 9/11 Change the World?Chapter 5 Forgotten DepthsChapter 6 Earliest Sources of the West's Design on the WorldChapter 7 Western ChristendomChapter 8 The Rise of the Modern StateChapter 9 The American Republic: Witness to the End of HistoryChapter 10 Wilsonianism: From Witness to VanguardChapter 11 Another American Century?Chapter 12 Justifiable Warfare and Visions of PeaceChapter 13 What Role Among the Nations?Chapter 14 BibliographyChapter 15 Index

American foreign policy is troubling to the outside world, and perhaps to many Americans as well. Defiance by American policy makers of inter-governmental institutions and international law when American interests seem to dictate such a course of action,a self-assumed messianic calling of the United States to rid the world of repressive regimes, neglecting peaceful means for bringing about political reform in maverick states and at times resorting to armed intervention to achieve that calling, and in general, American exceptionalism founded on a sense of uniqueness and self-righteousness, are clear markers of American hegemony but have also provoked severe criticism from among America's closest allies. In America's Role Among Nations , Jim Skillen offers his readers penetrating insights into the positive and negative appendices of American foreign policy. The focus of his analysis is on the historical roots of that policy, tracing the American mind-set to its Greco-Roman origins and exploring the influence of the Reformation and Enlightenment on convictions held dearly by the Founding Fathers and carried forward into modern times. He tracks contemporary manifestations of the American credo from Wilson to Bush in a great variety of empirical set