Between Virtue and Power: The Persistent Moral Dilemma of U.S. Foreign Policy

Kane presents an impressively nuanced vision of the difficult choices faced by American leaders over generations of international conflict. This book offers a narrative in which the philosophical ideals of the nation's founders and successive presidents are compromised and mutated by the necessity of protecting American interests around the world. The presentation is dense, but the prose and arguments remain clear and fluid, even when Kane delves into something as unwieldy as the complex repercussions of Jay's Treaty of 1795. Kane finds a perfect case study for his chosen dichotomy in the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, who struggled to reconcile his vision of world peace with the horrors and consequences of WWI, and whose attempts to balance diplomacy and military force are echoed in ensuing presidencies: Roosevelt overcoming ""the inertial force of nonentanglement"" in order to preserve democracy, Carter attempting to work the levers of soft power in the name of human rights. Kane is admirably resistant to paint heroes and villains-even the polarizing presidency of George W. Bush is given the rigorous, cold-eyed assessment of the scholar rather than the partisan.