The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How America’s Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest

McDougall, Pulitzer winner for The Heavens and the Earth, echoes the sentiments proffered by William Appleman Williams in his 1959 book, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, wherein he lamented Americans’ failure to look inward and their habit of blaming outside forces for the nation’s difficulties. Hewing to a similar critical course, McDougall makes his bogeyman the nation’s non-sectarian civil religion: the belief that God (the god of all religions) smiles favorably on the U.S., especially on its interventions in others’ affairs. McDougall takes readers back to the Revolution, moving forward while positing that the conviction that the U.S. is somehow divinely protected from the normal vicissitudes of human life—a now-stale belief that was once benign and relevant to the nation early years—has been deeply injurious to the nation’s welfare. This was so from Washington’s farewell address and Jefferson’s “utopian temptation” though the era of Manifest Destiny and the Spanish-American War. It remains so with 21st-century efforts at regime change, which often results in engagement in unnecessary wars that endanger the national interest. McDougall is not incorrect, but many factors beside American civil religion have fueled American arrogance toward others. McDougall’s one-dimensional analysis makes his solid work less convincing than it could be. (Dec.)