The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory
Andrew Bacevich
Metropolitan Books, £20.00
History Has Begun: The Birth of a New America
Bruno Macaes
Hurst, £16.99
America was once Europe’s imagined future. No longer. It has squandered goodwill and abandoned the Enlightenment tradition of the Old World. On these points, Bruno Macaes and Andrew Bacevich agree. They are not alone. A canon of books and studies has been produced denoting the demise of a country that we used to call the leader of the free world. Where writers and analysts tend to differ is on the cause of the malaise. Where they are often found wanting is on the identification of a solution.
