Every argument over America's foreign policy and international role grows from this one.

24, 2017 A timely work on the vociferous sides taken over the Spanish-American War of 1898and how that history relates to the ongoing debate regarding American imperialism. Only once before-in the period when the United States was founded-have so many brilliant Americans so eloquently debated a question so fraught with meaning for all humanity.Īll Americans, regardless of political perspective, can take inspiration from the titans who faced off in this epic confrontation. THE TRUE FLAG THEODORE ROOSEVELT, MARK TWAIN, AND THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN EMPIRE by Stephen Kinzer RELEASE DATE: Jan. Washington, and Andrew Carnegie preached restraint. Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Randolph Hearst pushed for imperial expansion Mark Twain, Booker T. The country's best-known political and intellectual leaders took sides. Revealing a piece of forgotten history in The True Flag, Stephen Kinzer transports us to the dawn of the twentieth century, when the United States first found itself with the chance to dominate faraway lands. Its themes resurface every time Americans argue whether to intervene in a foreign country. Every argument is a pale shadow of the first and greatest debate, which erupted more than a century ago. No matter how often we debate this question, none of what we say is original. Then we retreat-until the cycle begins again. Sometimes we burn with righteous anger, launching foreign wars and deposing governments. How should the United States act in the world? Americans cannot decide. The bestselling author of Overthrow and The Brothers brings to life the forgotten political debate that set America's interventionist course in the world for the twentieth century and beyond.

The true flag by stephen kinzer