The Irony of American History

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of American policy after the Second World War. Peofessor Niebuhr defines communism, liberalism, and American capitalism with an insight rarely encountered. He explains the problem with communism in having politcal and economic power in the same hands, while promoting the illusion that man controls history and that the 'destruction of private property' will solve all of a nation's problems. At the same time he acknowledges that Marx et al did want to produce a better world. American policy, he asserts, is more pragmatic than it's ideal of pure capitalism. Its pragmatism allows it to incorporate social programs that its theory would not include, and thus solves social and economic problems here that were only addressed by revolution in countries like Russia. There is much more, but read it yourself and find out.

The "useful" rating I have received for all of my reviews to date is about 47%--now I know how John McCain feels! In an effort to raise my rating to an Obama-like 53% I have undertaken to review a book that has been republished for this election year. Whenever a book by someone now deceased is re-published one should ask why, and when that author has written several books the additional question becomes why now. In the case of The Irony of American History by Reinhold Niebuhr the answers are clear from reading the back cover. There you will find Barack Obama saying that Niebuhr "is one of my favorite philosophers," (which is akin to a chocoholic saying, "Herseys is one of my favorite candy bars.") There is also a reference that the book has been cited by "politicians as diverse as Hilary Clinton and John McCain." So it's re-publication is about making a buck in this presidential year. Still it is well worth reading. Niebuhr has some important things to say in this book, but not what people such as Andrew Bacevich, who wrote the Introduction for the book, claim. It is not, as Bacevich boldly states, "the most important book ever written on U.S, foreign policy." It is not even a book, in the sense that, as Niebuhr himself writes in the Preface, the substance of the book consists of two series of lectures given in 1949 and 1951. Also it is not about American foreign policy, or for that matter even about the irony of American history. What the book is really about is a critical examination of the differences between Communism, as it existed at that time and the Western political and economic system and values with which it was in conflict. Niebuhr begins by calling attention to the idea of American exceptionalism. The founders of this country regarded themselves as God's new chosen people and set out to be different from, and better than, their European counterparts. Niebuhr expounds on two ideas, Calvinism that was predominate in New England, and Jeffersonian values that prevailed in Virginia. He also refers to Max Weber and the idea of a "Protestant Ethic." What developed was a "cult of prosperity" and eventually a reliance on technology to solve our problems. "The irony of America's quest for happiness," Niebuhr writes on page 63, "lies in the fact that she succeeded more obviously than any other nation in making life more `comfortable,' only finally to run into larger incongruities of human destiny by the same achievements by which it (sic) escaped the smaller ones." Niebuhr devotes much of the middle of the book to an analysis of Communism. He notes that Communism developed primarily in those countries that were feudal, agrarian static societies (Russia, China and Southeast Asia). Even in Europe it made the most inroads in those countries--France and Italy--that retained the remnants of feudalism. He also castigates both Communism and Capitalism for taking too simplistic a view of reality. Communism assumes that the differences in

Neibuhr makes a strong case that America's history has in some ways worked against us, and brought us to a perspective that we, and we alone, have the best world view and the best way of doing things. The book is not a response to our invasion of Iraq, but our culture as he saw it during the Cold War era in which it was written. Beginning with the attitudes which developed as a result of our being on an incredibly rick continent, and able to thrive in relative isolation from European wars, our prosperity led us into kind of an echo chamber of self-confirming blessedness: of course we (and our way of life) must be superior, or why would God have given us such a continent to live on? Among the ironies which Neibhur focuses on is how our strength has actually put us in a position of weakness; because of our strength, we have a responsibility to use that strength very carefully (kind of a weakness, since we can't use the strength willy nilly). Secondly, the confidence we have in the righteousness of our views is a confidence which communism also has, although Neibhur is explicit in labeling Communism as tyrannical. It's a fine book, and I can't begin to do justice to his arguments here. But I highly recommend it, and in case you're wondering, it's not at all a "hate America first" book.

"Simply put, [this] is the most important book ever written on American foreign policy." Thus writes Andrew Bacevich in his introduction to the newly reissued book written by Reinhold Niebuhr in 1952. Bacevich is a Niebuhr scholar and author of the just published book, "The Limits of Power". He was largely responsible for getting "Irony" reissued. The timing of this book becoming available, as well as of Bacevich's own book, couldn't be better. Niebuhr was a pastor, teacher, activist, moral theologian and prolific author. He was a towering presence in American intellectual life from the 1930's through the 1960's. He was, at various points in his career, a Christian Socialist, a pacifist, an advocate of U.S. intervention in World War II, a staunch anti-communist, an architect of Cold War liberalism, and a sharp critic of the Vietnam War. The Irony of American History traces the course of American idealism and exceptionalism from its very beginnings in the providential thinking of the Pilgrims who settled Massachusetts. Written early in the Cold War, Niebuhr devotes much of his analysis to comparing and contrasting Marxian communism and the "bourgeois" liberalism, or liberal democracy of America. While he clearly argues that the liberal project of democracy offers more to the "common good" of the community than does Marxism, both have the seeds of their destruction in the illusions they hold. So-called "Niebuhrian realism" is the ability to see through such illusions as a condition for avoiding the worst pitfalls they carry. Alas, one of the greatest of these pitfalls is the American tendency to suppose that we can manage history. As Niebuhr writes: "The illusions about the possibility of managing historical destiny from any particular standpoint in history, always involves, as already noted, miscalculations about both the power and the wisdom of the managers and of the weakness and the manageability of the historical 'stuff' which is to be managed." He goes on to point out that "In the liberal versions of the dream of managing history, the problem of power is never fully elaborated. ...On the whole, [American government] is expected to gain its ends by moral attraction and limitation. Only occasionally does an hysterical statesman suggest that we must increase our power and use it in order to gain the ideal ends, of which providence has made us the trustees." Is it not painfully evident that we reached one of those "occasional moments" after 9/11 when "hysterical statesmen" - Bush and Cheney, et al - argued for a profound increase in the power to gain the "ideal ends" of bringing "freedom" to Iraq and the Middle East since we are the obvious "trustees" of this freedom? Herein lies the element of "irony", the philosophical and spiritual core of Niebuhr's arguments. The first element of irony, Niebuhr points out, "is the fact that our nation has, without particularly seeking it, acquired a greater degree of power than any other nation of histor

In The Irony of American History, Reinhold Niebuhr reviews the competing ideologies of communism and liberal democracy and finds that they both express an overly optimistic view of human nature. In the liberal view, the defects in human nature are curable through education or changes to social and political institutions. In communist ideology, the proletariat is a repository of virtue that will create a perfect society when the corrupting influence of the institution of private property is abolished. History, of course, shows that these views are dangerously inaccurate. Against them, Niebuhr offers the Christian view that man must struggle to create justice in this world while realizing that ultimate solutions lie beyond his grasp: "every sensitive individual has a relation to a structure of meaning which is never fulfilled in the vicissitudes of actual history." This book was written more than 50 years ago, during the hottest part of the cold war. Much of the book focuses on America's new (at that time) responsibilities as a superpower, and on the struggle between communism and democracy. Still, a modern reader will be surprised by the book's relevance to the current position of the United States in the world. Niebuhr takes it as self-evident that, if there is one center of power and authority, "preponderant and unchallenged, ... its world rule would almost certainly violate basic standards of justice." He outlines the attempts made in the U.S. constitution to diffuse power among different institutions and create a system of checks and balances. He cites James Bryce's assessment: "The aim of the constitution seems to be not so much to attain great common ends by securing a good government as to avert the evils which will flow not merely from a bad government but from any government strong enough to threaten the pre-existing communities and individual citizens." This works well enough in the United States, but how can the dangers associated with hegemonic power be averted in an international context? Niebuhr, a realist, notes that "no world government could possibly possess, for generations to come, the moral and political authority to redistribute power between nations in the degree in which highly cohesive national communities have accomplished this end in recent centuries." However, he expresses optimism that the United Nations might serve as a forum in which national policies are subjected to the scrutiny of world opinion. He also suggests that a sense of community with others might serve as some kind of internal check on power. Establishing such a sense of community requires recognition of our own fallibility and of the valid elements in what are to us foreign cultures, outlooks, and systems of government. Niebuhr sees that the strength of the United States after World War II has brought us into contact with very different societies, and "... neither their conceptions of the good, nor their interests, which are always compo