The Age of Illusions

"""Offers tantalizing insights into how America's Cold War victory soured. . . . Most interesting."" --The Economist ""Those unfamiliar with Bacevich's work will be thrilled to encounter a first-rate thinker whose trenchant, objective, well-written analyses defy glib labeling . . . Highly recommended."" --CHOICE ""This engrossing recounting of the irresponsibility of America's ruling class--aided and abetted by a citizenry grown complacent--clarifies the absurdities of the ascent of Trump. Like a Greek tragedian of old, Bacevich insistently discloses the discomfiting truth, showing how America's self-congratulatory past has led to our wrenching present. Instead of illusions, he offers hope for a future free of self-deception, and points the way toward a newly responsible American civic life.""--Patrick J. Deneen, author of Why Liberalism Failed ""In The Age of Illusions, Andrew Bacevich offers a thoughtful, well-informed, and deeply humane critique of the self-absorbed grandiosity that dominates American foreign policy. He is one of a handful of sane voices contributing to the national conversation, and this is an indispensable book for our troubled times.""--Jackson Lears, author of Rebirth of a Nation ""This astute analysis of how the United States squandered its 'cold war victory' shows how the elites wasted the peace dividend with policies favoring global neoliberalism, military hegemony, and radical individualism, paralyzing Washington and delivering the oval office to a patently incompetent candidate.""--Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, Editor, Commonweal (retired) ""America's most important challenges preceded Trump and will outlast him, Andrew Bacevich argues in this searing and powerful account of U.S. politics. This book will anger many readers, but it should also ignite overdue debate about permanent war enabled by public apathy, and economic inequality produced by globalized neoliberalism.""--Mary Dudziak, author of War Time ""As clear-headed as always, as honest as usual, Andrew Bacevich gives us a brilliant account of how the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War brought on not the end of history but an explosion of American hubris and an era of excess that blinded our political class to reality, stunted citizenship, undermined governance, and ignited angry disenchantment among great swaths of the public, enabling a real-life Captain Queeg to seize the helm, shouting 'Full Steam Ahead' toward monumental disaster. Unless, says Bacevich in his compelling conclusion, we come to our senses.""--Bill Moyers"