Ezra's Bookshelf

The Irony of American History

by Reinhold Niebuhr · 202 pages · ~3.5 hrs

PhilosophyPolitics & GovernmentReligion & Spirituality

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Reinhold Niebuhr's 1952 book remains one of the most penetrating American works on the moral situation of the United States as a global power. Niebuhr, a Protestant theologian at Union Theological Seminary and one of the leading public intellectuals of his generation, wrote during the deepening of the Cold War, when American power was at its peak and the temptation to identify that power with virtue was acute. His argument is that the United States is uniquely susceptible to a particular illusion: that its democratic ideals and its material success exempt it from the moral ambiguities that have afflicted every other historical empire. Drawing on Augustine and on his own theological tradition, Niebuhr argues that history is governed by ironies—outcomes that are the unintended and often opposite results of human purposes—and that the only honest response is a chastened recognition of the gap between one's intentions and one's effects. He warns against both the messianic communism of the Soviet Union and the self-righteous anti-communism of his fellow Americans, treating each as expressions of the same refusal to accept the tragic structure of political life. The book has been cited by figures across the political spectrum—Hans Morgenthau, Hannah Arendt, John McCain, Barack Obama—and remains a standard reference for thinking about American foreign policy in a humbled key.

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