In its dealings with the broader world, has the United States been a force for liberty? Should it be? And if so, why? Christopher A. Preble’s new book answers these questions.
Understanding U.S. Foreign Policy
In its dealings with the broader world, has the United States been a force for liberty? Should it be? And if so, how?
To answer these questions, Peace, War, and Liberty: Understanding U.S. Foreign Policy traces the history of the United States foreign policy and the ideas that have animated it.
Has the United States been a force for liberty around the world? Should it be? And if so, how? To answer these questions, Christopher A. Preble traces the history of U.S. foreign policy from the American Founding to the present, examining the ideas that have animated it, asking whether America’s policy choices have made the world safer and freer, and considering the impact of those choices on freedom at home.
Preble explains the need to question the assumptions that drive American foreign policy in the modern era―especially the assumption that American politicians can and should forcibly remake the international order to suit their desires. He asks readers to consider whether America and the world would be safer and freer if U.S. foreign policy incorporated libertarian insights about the limitations of government power.
At once evenhanded and uncompromising, Peace, War, and Liberty is a comprehensive challenge to the interventionist ideology of America’s foreign policy establishment.
Lectures
Libertarianism.org cited works in Peace, War, and Liberty:
- John Quincy Adams, Address Delivered at the Request of the Committee for Arrangements for Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence, at the City of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821.
Abraham Lincoln, “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions”
William Graham Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace”. With a remastered audio verision of the speech here.
Unintended Consequences by Donald J. Boudreaux
Please see all the podcasts featuring Christopher A. Preble below.
Ep. 104: The United States as a Young Foreign Power, Part Two, with Christopher A. Preble
We pick up our conversation with Christopher Preble to introduce his new book; Peace, War, and Liberty, released today on our site.
Ep. 103: The United States as a Young Foreign Power, with Christopher A. Preble
Christopher A. Preble joins us for part one of a two part discussion of early American foreign policy blunders.
Understanding U.S. Foreign Policy
Christopher A. Preble joins us to discuss his new book; Peace, War, and Liberty: Understanding U.S. Foreign Policy, coming out April 30th, 2019.
About the Lecturer
Christopher A. Preble
is the vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He is the author of The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free (Cornell University Press, 2009) and John F. Kennedy and the Missile Gap (Northern Illinois University Press, 2004). He coedited, with John Mueller, A Dangerous World? Threat Perception and U.S. National Security (Cato Institute, 2014); and, with Jim Harper and Benjamin Friedman, Terrorizing Ourselves: Why U.S. Counterterrorism Policy Is Failing and How to Fix It (Cato Institute, 2010).
Preble has also published articles in major publications, including the New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, National Review, The National Interest, and Foreign Policy, and is a frequent guest on television and radio.
In addition to his work at Cato, Preble teaches the U.S. foreign policy elective at the University of California, Washington Center. Before joining Cato in February 2003, he taught history at St. Cloud State University and Temple University. Preble was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy, and served aboard the USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) from 1990 to 1993.
Preble holds a PhD in history from Temple University.