The Tragedy of Great Power Politics
Where to buy The Tragedy of Fantastic Power Politics books online?
Product Description
A decade after the cold war finished, policy makers and academics foresaw a new era of peace and prosperity, an era in which democracy and open trade would indication the “end of history.” The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, sadly shattered these idyllic illusions, and John Mearsheimer’s masterful new book clarifies why these harmonious visions remain utopian. To Mearsheimer, fantastic power politics are tragic because the anarchy of the international system requires states to seek dominance at one another’s expense, dooming even peaceful nations to a relentless power struggle. Mearsheimer illuminates his theory of offensive realism through a sweeping survey of modern fantastic power struggles and reflects on the bleak prospects for peace in Europe and northeast Asia, arguing that the United States’s security competition with a rising China will intensify regardless of “engagement” policies.Amazon.com Review
This hardheaded book about international relations contains no comforting bromides about “peace dividends” or “the family tree of nations.” As a replacement for, University of Chicago professor John J. Mearsheimer posits an nearly Darwinian state of affairs: “The fantastic powers seek to maximize their share of world power” because “having dominant power is the best means to ensure one’s own survival.” Mearsheimer comes from the pragmatist school of statecraft–he calls his own brand of thinking “offensive realism”–and he warns repeatedly against putting too much faith in the goodwill of additional countries. “The sad fact is that international politics has permanently been a ruthless and treacherous business,” he writes. Much of the book is an attempt to show how the diplomatic and military history of the last two centuries supports his thoughts. Toward the end of The Tragedy of Fantastic Power Politics, he applies his theories to the current scene: “I judge that the existing power structures in Europe in Northeast Asia are not sustainable through 2020.” Mearsheimer is especially critical of America’s policy of engagement with China; he thinks that trying to make China wealthy and democratic will only make it a stronger rival. This is a controversial thought, but it is ably argued and hard to snub. –John Miller
Buy Cheap The Tragedy of Fantastic Power Politics Online
Related posts:
- Killer Politics: How Big Money and Bad Politics Are Destroying the Great American Middle Class
- Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell’s 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon
- The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade
- Juice Fasting and Detoxification: Use the Healing Power of Fresh Juice to Feel Young and Look Great : The Fastest Way to Restore Your Health
- In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
I have not read the book, but I have read reasonably a number of the reviews of the book, which as a whole, I trust.
When I read that Mearsheimer would intentionally try and lower China’s power – to make a safer world? – I quiver.
Luckily for mankind neuroscience is building very quick progress – these new scanners are producing all kinds of REAL knowledge about how our brains work.
My guess is that intentionally trying to lower the economic success of 1,300,000,000 Chinese is not going to make them friends of yours. If any Chinese leader wanted to pick a fight with the US, Mearsheimer would have agreed him very justifiable reasons – it would be a bit like the way we treated the Germans after World War I – that CAUSED WWII.
My bet is that the Internet, the spread of decent international institutions with REAL and FAIR rules and procedures, the spread of knowledge about how our brains work – and what upsets us, the spread of truly international commerce and institutions, the spread of international tourism, the spread of TV everywhere by cable and satellite and internet — all these will have a profound effect on our wish to wage war. Increasingly war will come to be seen as the immature irrational truly antisocial behaviour that it is.
War comes from the way our brains our constructed – our ability to be fooled, to be persuaded to want more, to be led falsely, to be angered, to be insulted, to want to be part of the crowd. The new brain science revelations should help us construct new artificial political mechanisms, national and international, to avoid wars. I hope!
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Better read with a German accent.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I have not received the book till now
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Offensive realists should not aver Mearsheimer as their champion. Although well written, Mearsheimer’s examples do more to disprove his theory than prove it. Serious students of international relations will find this book empty and missing logic.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Read this comment if you are a graduate student, faculty, or any additional serious intellectual.
I have three concerns:
1) This BOOK is incorrect in the EMPIRICAL cases: European States did not balance against united states in the 19th century. Mearshimer has a lot of awfull empirical mistakes in his analysis. Persons who are graduate students in International Relations will notice this coming up in their resepctive seminar discussions.
2)The theory he advances is UNFALSIFIABLE: hence unscientific, though it wishes to be. e.g. Why did not the united states nuke the soviet union or any additional country when it had the monopoly over nuclear weapons immediate afterwards of 1945? It could have been the global sovereign/hegemon? : His answer is that States sometimes Do bid for power and hegemony sometimes do not (BUT WHY AND WHEN?). So Mearsheimer is arguing for an empty theory, IN EVERY case he presents he wins- because it is unfalsifiable- like a religious or ideological doctrine.
3) Every intelligent graduate student would admit the POLITICAL voice in Mearsheimer’s theory, although it cries to be ‘objective’ and scientific. Mearsheimer is clearly a political conservative and isolationist, which one can find in any current ‘fascist’ debate in politics. The underlying argument is clear in the favor of “Shoot first question questions later”/”since we’re in the security dilemma: Kill Em All” redneck fascist speechifying. If one really wants to know what the causes of war are, just CONSIDER thinking about the publication of this book and persons who judge in it because it is “objective, scientific and real”. It is for such understandings of world politics that a foreign policy is shaped for war-mongering, hence the causes of war.
THESE COMMENTS ARE FORTHCOMING IN AN ACADEMIC JOURNAL-PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION
(I can already imagine the negative votes to be agreed to this review, since all who are reading Tradegy of Fantastic Power Politics is under an idelogical restraint: meaning the inability to see beyond the state system. I accept that most negative reviews would come from the ‘heroic students’ of Mearsheimer and fellow ‘pragmatist’ blinded conservatives. Hence the theory is pure political as all pragmatist doctrines are: THEY ARE unable to see beyond the state system that is supposed to reflect the ‘reality’.
The problem is : They can not see beyond the state system: what about houndreds of thousands, millions of people who are refugees throughout the world? A excellent pragmatist answer: Snub them they do not exist because they do not have enough power= this means realism as a whole, is a POLITICAL theory rather than a ‘pathological’ all explanotory theory that ‘clarifies most’. But then again the question stands what about the millions of people: and here comes the political scenery of Pragmatist scholars: “THEY ARE NOT IMPORTANT”. This last remark was really an exhange between me and a scholar at the International Studies Association Talks last year)
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5