Tue, 29 December 2020
On today's Best of: Sam hosts Stephen Wertheim, the Deputy Director of Research at the Quincy Institute, to discuss his new book, Tomorrow the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy and the political and intellectual history behind U.S. global hegemony post-WWII. Wertheim and Sam begin their interview by discussing the Monroe Doctrine’s implications and its role in defining the role of America’s assumption of global hegemony. Wertheim explains how the Council of Foreign Relations forecasted how to best distribute world power after WWII and how the American people would prosper under a “quartered” world. However, the CFR determined a quartered-ruled world was not a politically viable option. Wertheim teases out his thesis that interventionists and internationalists together realized that global dominion and a U.S. “world order” were essential to American exceptionalism and maintaining modern humanity. Sam and Wertheim also discuss post-War State Department planners arrived at founding the United Nations. Sam and Wertheim conclude their conversation with an assessment of what’s to come as American hegemony sundowns. |