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The Rise and Decline of the American Century
William O. Walker III
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018 Hardcover. xviii+293 pages. ISBN 1501726137. $46.95
Reviewed by Roger Chapman Palm Beach Atlantic University
William O. Walker’s The Rise and Decline of the American Century, just as the title suggests, is an overview of postwar American foreign policy in light of “The American Century” essay in Life magazine. In that famous piece of 1941 (prior to Pearl Harbor), written by magazine publisher Henry R. Luce, America was presented as having both opportunity and responsibility in the global community. As Luce explained, “… the sickness of the world is also our sickness” and after the inevitable defeat of fascism the US will have to focus on “establishing a workable Peace.”(1) Walker examines the period of the three decades following the end of World War II to the collapse of the Nixon presidency, arguing that the prism for viewing this period should be the American Century and not the Cold War. The author, a professor of history retired from the University of Toronto, believes that his approach is the best way to examine the postwar period because it “enables us to recognize its history as our own” [xii], which sounds like an idea Luce would have come up with. From Walker’s perspective, the Cold War was a secondary aspect of the primary American Century “project” [x]. The American Century visionary statement, he asserts, was “internalized” [210] by the presidents, from Truman to Johnson, but the leading Cold War historians, namely John Lewis Gaddis and Fredrik Logevall, have largely ignored its impact on shaping how policymakers felt. All US history surveys certainly give attention to Luce’s essay and the ideas it contained, but Walker considers its influence as not being properly recognized. A dense work, The Rise and Decline of the American Century consists of preface, introduction, seven chapters with a conclusion, endnotes, and index. Primary sources from archives are used, but the author also engages with secondary texts as he presses his argument that ties in with the American Century. Part one (“The Rise of the American Century”, in four chapters) suggests Luce’s project reached its zenith during the Eisenhower administration. This period is summarized as the pursuit of hegemony, the protection of the non-communist world, the maintaining of world stability, and the sustaining of American leadership. Part two (“The Decline of the American Century”, in three chapters) argues that by the Nixon era the United States had lost its primacy and was no longer able to assert its will as there continued to be a free world but not a “free-world society” [208]. The primary weakness of Walker’s work is admitted by the author himself: namely, during the height of the Cold War “the American Century” was not mentioned in the public statements of the American presidents. Moreover, the news media rarely referred to Luce’s article. At best, Walker is making an argument of intuition. Eisenhower is described as one who “instinctively knew what Luce had articulated in 1941: propagating an American Century demanded strong leadership” [75-76]. In actuality, the American Century as a conscious idea being acted upon is more evident at the end of the twentieth century with the rise of the neoconservatives and their-short lived think tank, The Project for the New American Century [PNAC]. Arguably, during the Cold War the mainstream media and political leaders harbored an American Century structure of feeling and did not discuss it much because it was “self-evident.” Certainly, Luce’s thoughts on American exceptionalism tapped into a preexisting ethos many Americans, before, then and now, have embraced as if a birthright. American exceptionalism certainly undergirded the Cold War rationale. Any nation deciding it must save the free world has to be driven by a sense of exceptionalism. The Cold War as representing the height of American exceptionalism would probably be a better framework to go by. During the Cold War it was fashionable for American cold warriors to quote Tocqueville’s Democracy in America as if it represented scripture and the reason they did so was because the 1835 text was infused with assertions of exceptionalism. According to Walker, the Cold War and the American Century “notionally converged” [43] in 1950 with NSC 68, the National Security Council policy paper drafted under the direction of Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Walker rates NSC 68 as only secondary to the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Emancipation Proclamation, which is quite a (hyperbolic) statement to make. If asked on any Main Street, a typical American probably would be able to say something intelligent about the founding documents and Lincoln’s proclamation. But probably a typical American would have a blank look if asked about NSC 68.(2) NSC 68 reduced the Cold War to a Manichean struggle by characterizing the Soviet Union as an utterly dangerous threat necessitating a massive increase in American military spending. Walker does not offer specific evidence that Acheson was animated by Luce’s 1941 essay, but he nonetheless writes that the secretary of state “deemed it his responsibility to create conditions in which the Free World could thrive, and that meant overseeing the growth of the American Century” [45]. Some readers may see this as the author forcing his theme on the historical narrative, but he is careful to suggest that NSC 68 is “evocative” of Luce, specifically these words from the 1941 essay: “we must lead in building a successfully functioning political and economic system in the free world.” (Of course, it is another question entirely how many presidents and members of Congress were influenced by NSC 68 in ways they were not already leaning.) The political and economic were carried out with everything from the United Nations to the Bretton Woods system, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund [IMF]. The Marshall Plan, with its economic rebuilding of Europe, led to the “Americanization” of Europe [37]. (All of these developments, it should be noted, occurred prior to NSC 68.) According to Walker, Luce did not embrace laissez-faire economics, but believed in “the power of the state, albeit sparingly, to construct a modern economic world” [34]. The formation of NATO (also prior to NSC 68) helped the United States become a “steward of civilization” [29], as Walker quotes author Lawrence Kaplan. These postwar developments, Walker maintains, remarkably aligned with Luce’s earlier vision of the American Century, so he thinks this history should be viewed as Luce’s ideas being carried out. Though the main premise of The Rise and Decline of the American Century is a bit of overreaching, the author nonetheless provides a solid narrative of the Cold War period. Luce’s term, it can be noted, is creeping into many works of late. Clay Rosen has a new book out, The Crowded Hour : Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century. Also, the title of George Packer’s recent biography of the American diplomat Richard Holbrooke invokes Luce: Our Man : Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century. At the same time, the American international disengagement by the Trump administration has mainstream observers, such as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, wishing for a return to a Luce-like vision.(3) The French ambassador to the United Nations has also lamented the Trump administration’s disengagement, but recognizes that “it started before the current administration”(4)—which is in harmony with what Walker writes, though the contention is the wind left the American Century sails back during the seventies. “The presidency of Donald J. Trump,” Walker writes at the end of his work, “ended speculation about the restoration of the American Century anytime soon,” but Trump’s reluctance to end the “forever war” in Afghanistan is an example of how “allure of an American Century lingered” [217]. Some light criticism is warranted. If Luce’s essay is so critical for understanding the Cold War era, then more of the essay should have been quoted. In fact, the essay should have been a document at the back of the volume. On page 44, the author’s recollection on Dean Acheson’s statement on the US defense perimeter in Asia, with respect to South Korea, is simpler than the actual contested interpretations. On page 60, some readers will regard it as a racist comment where Walker writes, “Hypersexuality among young people, influenced by the allure of African American music and popular culture ….” _________________ (1) Henry R. Luce, “The American Century” [quotes 160 and 163] : http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mlassite/discussions261/luce.pdf
(2) Readers interested in a thorough analysis of NSC 68, from multiple perspectives, would do well to consult with Ernest R. May, ed., American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC 68. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s, 1993.
(3) See Thomas L. Friedman, “Has Our Luck Run Out?” New York Times, 1 May 2019, A23 : https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/opinion/trump-climate-change.html
(4) François Delattre, “As the U.S. Disengages, Peril Ahead for the World”. New York Times, 15 June 2019, A25 : https://europe.columbia.edu/news/board-member-francois-delattre-world-grows-more-dangerous-day
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