Book Discussion with Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier

America Between the Wars shows that America did not change in one day. The tragedy of 9/11 and its aftermath had its origins twelve years earlier, when the world really did shift in ways that were incomprehensible at the time. Strangely, the date mirrors a much happier moment: it was November 9, 1989—11/9—when the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War was effectively over. During the last decade of the twentieth century, America and the West declared victory. Democracy and the free market had prevailed, and the United States emerged as the world’s triumphant superpower. The finger-on-the-button tension that had defined an earlier generation was over, and it seemed that long-lasting peace was at hand. The next twelve years passed in a haze of self congratulation and inward preoccupation—what some now mistakenly call a “holiday from history.” When that complacency about the world shattered on September 11, 2001, confused Americans asked themselves: How did we get here? America Between the Wars reveals the ways that debates about America’s role in the world framed the intense political struggles between Republicans and Democrats. It is an important inside story of a generation of leaders grappling with a decade of dramatic transformation. This book changes how we should think about the recent past, and uncovers important lessons for the future.