Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age, by Christopher McKnight Nichols

Abstract

Christopher McKnight Nichols Promise and Peril: America at Dawn of Global Age Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press;, 201 I ; 464 pp., ISBN: 978-0-674-04984-0, $37.00 (cloth).Christopher McKnight Nichols opens his study of American isolationism by quoting George W. Bush's warning, in his 2006 State of Union address, that the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting-yet it ends in danger and decline (1). The bipartisan proclivity for employing solely as an epithet, Nichols writes, along with its binary opposition to internation- alism, misconstrues rich complexity of origins of isolationism'' (1). Nichols seeks to reinterpret and rehabilitate isolationist thinkers of period from roughly 1898 to 1940, whose ideas he frames as response to turn-of-the-century imperialism and Spanish-American War. This modern isolationism was a constellation of ideas rather than single principle or policy position (352) and compatible with widely divergent approaches to foreign relations. Nichols is intent on proving that isolationism did not entail cultural, economic, or complete political separation from rest of although such separation from world is first reaction that comes to mind. Isolationism was also rooted in conceptions of American domestic arrangements and frequently turned, in fact and in debate, on inner life of nation (352).This is nowhere near as daring and pathbreaking as it sounds. Not for decades has any serious student of American diplomacy believed that isolationism entailed construction of impermeable barriers between America and rest of world. And there is already rich literature (indeed, Nichols cites it extensively) that demonstrates how deeply rooted isolationist precepts were in conceptions of good life at home. For example, Wayne S. Cole's many works on interwar isolationists amply illustrate centrality of their Midwestern and agrarian roots to their suspicion of entanglements abroad. Yet if these elements of Nichols' larger argument are all too familiar, its parts are often greater than whole. The ana- lyses of individual figures are discerning, well judged, and show commendable grasp of varied archival materials and relevant scholarly literature, even if Nichols' prose is often sloppy and copy-editing is abysmal.Nichols gets off to shaky start by choosing as one of his exemplary figures Republican senator Henry Cabot Lodge, vehement imperialist and navalist. Lodge was prominent supporter of Large Policy against which Nichols sees most of his other illustrative figures reacting, and his one isolationist trait was an absolutist conception of national sovereignty. In his case, this ruled out participation in League of Nations as an intolerable abridgement of Congress's prerogative to decide if and where American troops were deployed and led him, as chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to play crucial role in preventing American ratification of Treaty of Versailles. If Lodge can be shoehorned into isolationist camp, questions arise of just who could plausibly be excluded and whether what Nichols surveys is in fact coherent tradition or world view at all.Fortunately, most of other individuals to whom Nichols devotes chapters fit isolationist mould more consistently and amount to something better resem- bling unified school of thought. Their principal shared preoccupation is with fate of individual liberty in wake of giant industrial and military organizations ushered in by new century. Nichols turns first to philosopher William James, previously apolitical but stalwart of Anti-Imperialist League after American troops were committed to occupying Philippines. Aptly enough for founder of Pragmatism, James judged America's dalliance with empire by its consequences, and feared that however elevated motives and rhetoric of empire, reality would be brutality abroad and conformity at home. …