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Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

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Date and time
Monday, October 05, 2009

Conservative historian Andrew Bacevich discusses his provocative book *The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism*. Bacevich joins Charles Sennott, founder of the online news service GlobalPost, to discuss the challenges the Obama administration faces in Afghanistan. Written in the days leading up to the 2008 presidential election, *The Limits of Power* asks us to take a step back from the policies that have not served us well, and calls for a return to respect for power and its limits; aversion to claims of exceptionalism; skepticism of easy solutions, especially those involving force; and a conviction that Americans must live within their means. Only a return to such principles, Bacevich argues, can provide common ground for fixing America's urgent problems before the damage becomes irreparable.

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Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. A graduate of the US Military Academy, he received his Ph. D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University. Before joining the faculty of Boston University in 1998, he taught at West Point and at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Bacevich is the author of *The Limits of Power: American Exceptionalism *(2008). His previous books include *American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy* (2002), *The Imperial Tense: Problems and Prospects of American Empire* (2003) (editor), *The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War* (2005), and *The Long War: A New History of US National Security Policy since World War II* (2007) (editor). His essays and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of scholarly and general interest publications including *The Wilson Quarterly*, *The National Interest*, *Foreign Affairs*, *Foreign Policy*, *The Nation*, *The American Conservative*, and *The New Republic* . His op-eds have appeared in *the New York Times*, *Washington Post*, *Wall Street Journal*, *Financial Times*, *Boston Globe*, *Los Angeles Times*, and *USA Today*, among other newspapers. In 2004, Dr. Bacevich was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He has also been a fellow of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
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Charles Sennott is the founder and Editor of The GroundTruth Project. He is an award-winning correspondent, best-selling author, and editor with 30 years of experience in international, national and local journalism. A leading social entrepreneur in new media, Sennott started GroundTruth in 2014 and in 2017, launched the non-profit organization's new, local reporting initiative, Report for America.
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