Book Event: A Pact with the Devil
Washington's Bid for World Supremacy and the Betrayal of the American Promise
Event
Many liberals as well as conservatives supported the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. In his provocative new book A Pact with the Devil: Washington’s Bid for World Supremacy, Tony Smith, professor of political science at Tufts University, criticizes liberal hawks as well as neocons for sharing a common project of American world supremacy. In a recent article in The Washington Post (3/11/2007), Smith warns that "the danger lies in believing that our power is beyond challenge, that the righteousness of our goals is beyond question and that the real task is not to reformulate our role in the world so much as to assert more effectively a global American peace."
Tony Smith is Cornelia M. Jackson Professor of Political Science at Tufts University and Senior Fellow at Harvard's Center for European Studies. Among his previous books are America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton UP, 1994) and Foreign Attachments: The Power of Ethnic Groups in the Making of American Foreign Policy (Harvard UP, 2000). His recently released book A Pact with the Devil: Washington's Bid for World Supremacy and the Betrayal of the American Promise is published by Routledge.
This provocative examination of the intellectual history of American foreign policy was hosted and moderated by Michael Lind, the Whitehead Senior Fellow at New America.
Video of the event is available at right, while an MP3 audio recording can be downloaded below. Please note, however, that technical difficulties resulted in a temporary loss of audio during Smith's remarks. The gap begins approximately six minutes into his presentation; audio is restored at the 10-minute mark. We apologize for the inconvenience.
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