From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's World Role

"Beautifully conceived; dazzlingly executed . . . The book casts a bright light on the past and the future―and the future of international politics." —Kenneth N. Waltz, Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University

In From Wealth to Power, New York Times-bestselling author Fareed Zakaria examines the most puzzling case of a rising power in modern history—that of the United States.

If rich nations routinely become great powers, Zakaria asks, then how do we explain the strange inactivity of the United States in the late nineteenth century? By 1885, the U.S. was the richest country in the world. And yet, by all military, political, and diplomatic measures, it was a minor power. To explain this discrepancy, Zakaria considers a wide variety of cases between 1865 and 1908 when the U.S. considered expanding its influence in such diverse places as Canada, the Dominican Republic, and Iceland. Consistent with the realist theory of international relations, he argues that the President and his administration tried to increase the country's political influence abroad when they saw an increase in the nation's relative economic power. But they frequently had to curtail their plans for expansion, he shows, because they lacked a strong central government that could harness that economic power for the purposes of foreign policy. America was an unusual power--a strong nation with a weak state. It was not until late in the century, when power shifted from states to the federal government and from the legislative to the executive branch, that leaders in Washington could mobilize the nation's resources for international influence.

Zakaria's exploration of this tension between national power and state structure will change how we view the emergence of new powers and deepen our understanding of America's exceptional history.

© 1999 Princeton University Press (Ebook): 9781400829187

Release date

Ebook: July 26, 1999