FREE A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE PDF Richard Yates | 336 pages | 11 Dec 2008 | Vintage Publishing | 9780099518631 | English | London, United Kingdom SPECIAL PROVIDENCE discography and reviews Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to A Special Providence Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. One of America's leading foreign policy thinkers, Walter Russell Mead, argues that these diverse, conflicting impulses have in fact been the key to the U. In a A Special Providence new synthesis, Mead uncovers four distinct historical patterns in foreign policy, each exemplified by A Special Providence towering figure from our past. Wilsonians are moral missionaries, making the world safe for democracy by creating international watchdogs like the U. Hamiltonians likewise support international engagement, but their goal is to open foreign markets and expand the economy. Populist Jacksonians support a strong military, one that should be used rarely, but then with overwhelming force to bring the enemy to its knees. Jeffersonians, concerned primarily with liberty at home, are suspicious of both big military and large-scale international projects. A striking new vision A Special Providence America's place in the world, Special Providence transcends stale debates about realists vs. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. Published September 8th by Routledge first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Special Providenceplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Jun 16, xhxhx rated it really liked it. I shouldn't give A Special Providence such a high rating. It's an ahistorical framework; it elides distinctions between intellectual, political and social movements; it assumes collectives have agency, and omits most of actual agents and events from the narrative; it cannot possibly be true. But it's a delight to read and it might have changed my mind. It has given me something to think with and things to think about. It has made me think of American history as a whole, rather than as a series of episodes. It has A Special Providence shouldn't give this such a high rating. It has suggested to me a framework that I do believe, and that might just be true: American foreign policy is as pluralist as American domestic politics, and just as shaped by contests between domestic movements A Special Providence American intellectual, political, and social life. A Special Providence conceit of the book is that those movements were much the same from towith the same bases, the same preferences, and the same ideas: commerical Madisonians, missionary Wilsonians, quietist Jeffersonians, and warrior Jacksonians. That's what can't possibly be true, but even its untruth inspires reflection. Against my better judgment, it will probably change the way I think. May A Special Providence, Andrew Carr rated it it was amazing. His politics always seemed different to my own, but I liked being provoked and somewhat led along the thoughtlines of this engaging writer. Thus, I'd been looking forward to reading this book for a while. I'd also heard a lecture while I was in the US which used the conceptual framework of this book to organise the discussion. For the rest of my trip I hunted a copy of this book, but like my own white whale, failed to catch it. Instead I had to turn to the ingenuity of American commerce to eventually land a copy at my door. If the first two schools represent the bankers and missionaries of the North East, the latter may be stereotyped as the aristocrats and red necks of the south. Between them however, they have managed to provide a ballast and 'realism' to American foreign policy that has led this nation to a position of authority, legitimacy and significance unrivaled in human history. I use the term realism deliberately because, for all the wisdom of WRM's main argument, there's another just-as-clever theme behind the 'four schools' organisation of this book. Much like Fukuyama's End of History, it's easy to just track the 'big idea' at the center of this book and miss the elegance and deliberateness with which the A Special Providence has structured their argument. The first pages or so of Special Providence are not mere throat clearing about the four schools but a very important argument: namely that US foreign policy succeeds precisely because it has not tried to follow that most well known and adored icon of foreign policy: The Continental realist. For at least the last century to be 'serious' in international affairs was to be a realist. Despite Machiavelli's actual record as a failed diplomat scribbling away in his shed, his robes are still the A Special Providence desired outfit for wanna-be scholars and practitioners. A Special Providence learn a few lines like the 'failure of Versailles' and 'Nixon going to China' and you can befriend almost any IR post-grad in the security field. Yet WRM delivers a fairly brutal uppercut to this mythology by noting that American foreign policy seems to have succeeded precisely because it didn't follow Niccolo's maxims. Likewise Wilsonian idealism seems a too-obvious punching bag which some like my near-name-sake E. Carr made their career's taking well- aimed shots at. Yet, we live in a Wilsonian world. Likewise Jeffersonians and Jacksonians are responsible for the ingenuity and endurance of the American system when more 'realistic' advisers would have simply doubled down or given up and fold their cards. Special Providence was released in mid, yet it holds up remarkably well. Tensions with China and ill-consequences from A Special Providence the mujahideen can all be found A Special Providence here. I suspect, WRM would also still endorse his call for a greater Jeffersonian voice in US foreign policy the school A Special Providence would consider myself also closest to. To be fair, I'm one of those who think politics A Special Providence is only understood by those who have drank deeply from the past. This seems a somewhat rare view among many in our journalist and academic classes, so this book is a siren call to me. Highly recommended. Oct 12, Daniel Clausen rated it it was amazing Shelves: international-relations-classics. Spoiler Alert! This book has the benefit of being clearly written, engaging, and at times even a little tongue-in-cheek. The book was so good that I read it twice. At the heart of his books is the revisionist perspective that democracy does not necess Spoiler Alert! At the heart of his books is the revisionist perspective that democracy does not necessarily lead to an inferior foreign policy, that policy makers can learn a great deal by studying the early patterns of US foreign policy, and that there is a special kind of American diplomacy that is discernible by studying the historical record. The four distinct traditions that Mead outlines are as follows: Hamiltonians, who A Special Providence that a strong alliance between national government and big business was the key to effective policy abroad and at home--and that the US should engage in a global trading system; Wilsonians, who believed that the US had a moral obligation to spread democratic and social ideals; Jeffersonians, who thought that Americans should be less concerned with promoting democracy and more worried about protecting it at home; and Jacksonians, who believed that the most important role for government should be the physical security and economic well-being of its citizens xvii. Despite the often chaotic nature of US foreign A Special Providence notes especially the Cold War as time of seeming chaos—he also shows how the country can be remarkably consistent when it comes to important policies like containment of the Soviet Union. Mead also builds A Special Providence mini-theory of national myth. Part of the project A Special Providence the book, A Special Providence, is reconstituting or reclaiming a myth from the wreckage of the Cold War which is largely associated with continental realism. Reclaiming aspects of the old mythos requires understanding the four traditions at the heart of US politics. In terms of the Hamiltonian tradition, Mead notes how they speak the language of continental realism, usually come from upper class households, and typically have ties to Anglo-Saxon origins. This tradition is both realist and idealist the serpent and the dove —realist in that it often takes a mercantilist approach A Special Providence economics the US was content to free ride on the British system, exporting while failing to liberalize its marketsbut idealist in that it emphasizes that trade and commerce are a superior form of competition as compared with war. In terms of Wilsonians, Mead shows how this tradition evolved out of early missionary work. He impressively links this tradition with modern ideas of a global civil society and modern relief NGOs like World Vision and Catholic Relief Service p. Eventually, the protection of missionaries and foreign property would lead to negotiations to reduce human rights abuses p. To illustrate how much influence these missionaries had, Mead notes that one survey found that around 50 percent of the foreign culture experts during WWII were the offspring of missionaries. In terms of Jeffersonians this group, much like A Special Providence, are much more introspective and cautious about the world affairs and the prospects of the other countries becoming more like America.