America at the Brink of Empire

"Of continuing if not heightened relevance to contemporary debate, America at the Brink of Empire explores the foreign-policy leadership of Dean Rusk and Henry Kissinger regarding the extent of the United States' mission to insure a world order. Lawrence Serewicz argues that in the Vietnam conflict, the United States experienced an identity crisis - a Machiavellian moment, as conceived by J.G.A. Pocock - whereby America's world order role, an assumed imperial role, stretched the country to the limits of its identity as a republic. Serewicz offers a revealing look at the parts played by Rusk, President Lyndon Johnson, and Kissinger in bringing the nation to, and averting it from, the brink of empire in the years 1963 75." "Serewicz reflects on the continuing relevance of the Machiavellian moment for the United States by observing the differences and similarities between the presidencies of Johnson and George W. Bush. America at the Brink of Empire illuminates the far-reaching consequences of Rusk's and Kissinger's widely divergent foreign-policy philosophies and outlines the tension that a statesman must reconcile between a republican government and the maintenance of a stable world order."--Jacket.