Book review: With Great Powers comes Great Responsibilities….
Thirdly, Barnett articultes the strategic macro-choices (“Realignment”) that we face in the first decades of the 21st century based on the framework that our past choices have created. This last part of the book is where he generates enormous amounts of friction with more traditional policy wonk experts by de-compartmentalizing their pet issues into the agonizingly interrelated gordian knot that they represent in reality while re-buffing the idea that they add up to a collection of worst-case scenarios fusing into a mega-apocalypse. The integrated perspective pushed by Barnett also denies the likelihood of securing neat little zero-sum policy “wins” just for America (or Russia, or China or the EU). Tom gets bashed for simplifying in his briefs but briefs are not books and the problem his critics have is not his simplicity but the complexity that Barnett chooses to put on the table for debate.
That approach makes a lot of people whose education and experience is in selling or consuming the inch-wide, mile-long, tunnel -vision perspectives very uncomfortable. It is a repudiation not of their policies but of their whole mode of thinking about policy.
That brings me to why I think Great Powers should be read. An old mentor of mine used to warn his grad students of books that made them feel good by confirming their prejudices and dulling their thinking with smug superiority. Good books cause you to scrawl furiously in the margin. Despite the fact that I am in sync with many of Tom Barnett’s strategic ideas, there are parts of Great Powers that caused me to grit my teeth (case in point, his entertaining the faddish, Left-Fem polemicist, Susan Faludi as a serious thinker) or take a second look at my previously held opinions. This is what good books do and great books are the ones that do so for many people and thereby become potential game-changers.
Great Powers is one of those books.
Page 2 of 2 | Previous page
Lexington Green:
March 11th, 2009 at 5:07 am
Mark, this is very good. I like all three points. The way you have phrased item two in particular seems right — and it points up a key area of disagreement I have with Tom. Item three is exactly right, and it highlights what I respect and agree with about Tom’s work.
.
I have one more post for the Clausewitz Roundtable — summing things up. Then I will turn to a review of Great Powers as soon as I can.
.
Can we say that Barnett is a Clausewitzian thinker? His critics would howl with outrage at the prospect. But I think he is. The unity of political aims and military means is never broken in his thinking. The assessment of the full spectrum of factors is never short-changed — whether you agree with the conclusions he reaches or not.
historyguy99:
March 11th, 2009 at 6:26 am
Mark,
I have always found insight and honesty to be your stock in trade. This review proves it again.
I particularly like your second point about frontiers being where we find them. Even families enjoin this, with every generation challenging the previous.
Sean Meade:
March 11th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
nice review, Mark. just think, i’m even less objective than you 😉
ShrinkWrapped:
March 12th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Its the End of the World as We Know It: A Refrain…
Almost a year and a half ago I mused about the ongoing tension between our desire to build and our apparently only slightly less pronounced need to destroy: Its the End of the World as We Know It Since the……
zen:
March 14th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Thanks much gents! Much appreciated!
Brad:
March 14th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
The speed at which events are unfolding, unraveling may well be making Dr. Barnett’s vision and the metrics used n/a. In any case events, will soon vindicate him or not
tdaxp, Ph.D. » Blog Archive » Review of “The Great American University,” by Jonathan R. Cole:
July 24th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
[…] Barack Obama to be annoying, but anyone who has read The Post-American World (by Fareed Zakaria) or Great Powers (by The Great American University, and recommend it to anyone curious about American higher […]
Alles zu Goethes Iphigenie auf Tauris wie Analyse,Inhaltsangabe und vieles mehr.:
September 26th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
Alles zu Goethes Iphigenie auf Tauris wie Analyse,Inhaltsangabe und vieles mehr….
[…]zenpundit.com » Blog Archive » Book review: With Great Powers comes Great Responsibilities….[…]…