Does America still count in the world? Can the world still count on America? In raising such questions halfway into a series of systemic shocks that began in September 2001, Simon Serfaty, a long-time scholar of international politics, reminds Americans that their country's well-being and that of the world are intertwined. Play it again, Sam: History is in a foul mood again, and this is no time to come home and leave behind an unfinished European Union facing the ghosts of a revanchist Russia still claiming the Old World as its own; a strategic dark hole in the Greater Middle East, on the eve of a global Sarajevo moment; and China's surging hegemonic power in a continent fraught with too much history and too little geography. Admittedly, what is good for America may no longer be best for all the West, and what is good for the West may no longer be good for much of the Rest: the unipolar moment is irreversibly over. Yet, writing in an elegant style and with much historical insight, Serfaty argues that even with the old power map irreversibly gone, mainly to the benefit of the non-Western world, a new world order for the twenty-first century will remain dependent on the U.S. role, its capabilities and its efficacy, as well as its leadership and its purpose. Simon Serfaty is Professor and Eminent Scholar (Emeritus) in International Studies at Old Dominion University (ODU), in Norfolk, Virginia, USA, and the Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair (Emeritus) in Global Security and Geostrategy at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC., USA. A prolific writer on global foreign and security policy for the past five decades, always close to policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic, Serfaty has been a guest speaker in nearly fifty countries. He lives in Washington, DC.

Does America still count in the world? Can the world still count on America? In raising such questions halfway into a series of systemic shocks that began in September 2001, Simon Serfaty, a long-time scholar of international politics, reminds Americans that their country’s well-being and that of the world are intertwined. Play it again, Sam: History is in a foul mood again, and this is no time to come home and leave behind an unfinished European Union facing the ghosts of a revanchist Russia still claiming the Old World as its own; a strategic dark hole in the Greater Middle East, on the eve of a global Sarajevo moment; and China’s surging hegemonic power in a continent fraught with too much history and too little geography. Admittedly, what is good for America may no longer be best for all the West, and what is good for the West may no longer be good for much of the Rest: the unipolar moment is irreversibly over. Yet, writing in an elegant style and with much historical insight, Serfaty argues that even with the old power map irreversibly gone, mainly to the benefit of the non-Western world, a new world order for the twenty-first century will remain dependent on the U.S. role, its capabilities and its efficacy, as well as its leadership and its purpose.

Jeffrey Frank, author of the bestselling Ike and Dick, returns with the “beguiling” (The New York Times) first full account of the Truman presidency in nearly thirty years, recounting how a seemingly ordinary man met the extraordinary challenge of leading America through the pivotal years of the mid-20th century. The nearly eight years of Harry Truman’s presidency—among the most turbulent in American history—were marked by victory in the wars against Germany and Japan; the first use of an atomic bomb and the development of far deadlier weapons; the start of the Cold War and the creation of the NATO alliance; the Marshall Plan to rebuild the wreckage of postwar Europe; the Red Scare; and the fateful decision to commit troops to fight a costly “limited war” in Korea. Historians have tended to portray Truman as stolid and decisive, with a homespun manner, but the man who emerges in The Trials of Harry S. Truman is complex and surprising. He believed that the point of public service was to improve the lives of one’s fellow citizens and fought for a national health insurance plan. While he was disturbed by the brutal treatment of African Americans and came to support stronger civil rights laws, he never relinquished the deep-rooted outlook of someone with Confederate ancestry reared in rural Missouri. He was often carried along by the rush of events and guided by men who succeeded in refining his fixed and facile view of the postwar world. And while he prided himself on his Midwestern rationality, he could act out of instinct and combativeness, as when he asserted a president’s untested power to seize the nation’s steel mills. The Truman who emerges in these pages is a man with generous impulses, loyal to friends and family, and blessed with keen political instincts, but insecure, quick to anger, and prone to hasty decisions. Archival discoveries, and research that led from Missouri to Washington, Berlin and Korea, have contributed to an indelible and “intimate” (The Washington Post) portrait of a man, born in the 19th century, who set the nation on a course that reverberates in the 21st century, a leader who never lost a schoolboy’s love for his country and its Constitution.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! History called on Harry Truman to unite the Western world against Soviet communism, but first he had to rally Republicans and Democrats behind America’s most dramatic foreign policy shift since George Washington delivered his farewell address. How did one of the least prepared presidents to walk into the Oval Office become one of its most successful? The year was 1947. The Soviet Union had moved from being America’s uneasy ally in the Second World War to its most feared enemy. With Joseph Stalin’s ambitions pushing westward, Turkey was pressured from the east while communist revolutionaries overran Greece. The British Empire was battered from its war with Hitler and suddenly teetering on the brink of financial ruin. Only America could afford to defend freedom in the West, and the effort was spearheaded by a president who hadn’t even been elected to that office. But Truman would wage a domestic political battle that carried with it the highest of stakes, inspiring friends and foes alike to join in his crusade to defend democracy across the globe. In Saving Freedom, Joe Scarborough recounts the historic forces that moved Truman toward his country’s long twilight struggle against Soviet communism, and how this untested president acted decisively to build a lasting coalition that would influence America’s foreign policy for generations to come. On March 12, 1947, Truman delivered an address before a joint session of Congress announcing a policy of containment that would soon become known as the Truman Doctrine. That doctrine pledged that the United States would “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” The untested president’s policy was a radical shift from 150 years of isolationism, but it would prove to be the pivotal moment that guaranteed Western Europe’s freedom, the American Century’s rise, and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. Truman’s triumph over the personal and political struggles that confronted him following his ascension to the presidency is an inspiring tale of American leadership, fierce determination, bipartisan unity, and courage in the face of the rising Soviet threat. Saving Freedom explores one of the most pivotal moments of the twentieth century, a turning point when patriotic Americans of both political parties worked together to defeat tyranny.

American foreign policy since World War II has long been seen primarily as a story of strong and successful alliances, domestic consensus, and continuity from one adminstration to the next. Why then have so many presidents left office condemned for their foreign policy record? In his fresh and compelling history of America's rise to dominance, Stephen Sestanovich makes clear that U.S. diplomacy has always stirred controversy, both at home and abroad. He shows how successive adminstrations have struggled to find new solutions, alternating between bold "maximalist" strategies and retrenchment efforts to downsize America's role. Almost all our presidents emerge from this vivid retelling in a sharp and unexpected light.

This biography introduces readers to Harry S. Truman including his military service, early political career, and key events from Truman's administration including World War II, the Cold War, the Marshall Plan, and the Korean War. Information about his childhood, family, personal life, and retirement years is included. A timeline, fast facts, and sidebars provide additional information. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Checkerboard Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

A sweeping history of liberalism, from its earliest origins to its imperiled present and uncertain future Donald Trump is the first American president to regard liberal values with open contempt. He has company: the leaders of Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, among others, are also avowed illiberals. What happened? Why did liberalism lose the support it once enjoyed? In What Was Liberalism?, James Traub returns to the origins of liberalism, in the aftermath of the American and French revolutions and in the works of such great thinkers as John Stuart Mill and Isaiah Berlin. Although the first liberals were deeply skeptical of majority rule, the liberal faith adapted, coming to encompass belief in not only individual rights and free markets, but also state action to provide basic goods. By the second half of the twentieth century, liberalism had become the national creed of the most powerful country in the world. But this consensus did not last. Liberalism is now widely regarded as an antiquated doctrine. What Was LIberalism? reviews the evolution of the liberal idea over more than two centuries for lessons on how it can rebuild its majoritarian foundations.