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Play by the Rules

Play by the Rules 2

The Short Story of America's Leadership: From Hiroshima to COVID-19

by Michael Pembroke, Hon Justice
Paperback
Publication Date: 05/08/2020
5/5 Rating 2 Reviews

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In Play by the Rules, acclaimed writer and historian Michael Pembroke offers a fresh take on the USA's vast influence and asks whether it is still a force for good.

In the heady days after 1945, the authority of the United States was unrivalled. But seventy-five years later, its influence has already diminished. The world has now entered a post-American era – defined by the rise of Asia and the return of China, as much as by the decline of the United States. This book is a short history of that decline; how high standards and treasured principles were ignored; how idealism was replaced by hubris and moral compromise; and how adherence to the rule of law became selective.

Play by the Rules is also a look into the future – a future dominated by greater Asia and China in particular. We are in the midst of the third great power shift in modern history – from Europe to America to Asia. Washington’s failure of leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating history.
ISBN:
9781743796528
9781743796528
Category:
History of the Americas
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
05-08-2020
Publisher:
Hardie Grant Books
Country of origin:
Australia
Pages:
256
Dimensions (mm):
234x153mm

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2 Reviews

Play by the Rules is an excellent introduction to how the USA has interacted - warts and all - with the world since the Second World War and specifically how it has dealt with China replacing it as the number one economic power. It's an essential read for anyone who has an interest in international affairs.

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Play by the Rules. The Short History of America’s Leadership. From Hiroshima to Covid-19. Michael Pembroke, Hardie Grants Books, 2020.

Starting with the atomic bombing of two cities in Japan in August 1945, a decision made by the new President Harry Truman, who had just stepped into the position on the death of Franklin Roosevelt, right through to the notable lack of US leadership in the current Covid-19 crisis, Michael Pembroke surveys various significant episodes not only of US leadership over the last 75 years, but also of well-documented cases of misuse and overreach in the exercise of their undoubted power.
Michael Pembroke is both an established historian and a former supreme Court judge in Australia. His book Korea: Where the American Century Began was published in 1918; this new volume is in some ways a sequel and, who knows, it may be a conclusion to the cycle.
Given the current events in the US (November 2020) with the turmoil surrounding the emergence of a President elect, the appearance of this book is timely, particularly for Australians caught in a past of somewhat unquestioning subservience to the US, especially in relation to foreign and military policies.
So, for me, in reading this book, which ranges in its carefully articulated and meticulously documented four Parts from American exceptionalism, through its paranoid fear of communism, to militarism, interventionism and the America First syndrome, so often based on misunderstandings and false ideological presuppositions, it provides us with a solid a basis to reflect and reassess our interactions with the US, and even the nature of any assumed alliance with that nation.
The title of the book is ironic. There is a whole chapter devoted to the international treaties to which the US is either not a signatory or which they have never ratified, or from which they have withdrawn. I knew of a couple, such as the non participation in the International Criminal Court, but multiple others were unknown to me. I lost count eventually. So what about the much-vaunted preaching about “a rule-based order”?
I was particularly chilled by the chapter outlining the US division of the whole world into terrestrial combatant commands, to which has now been added a Space command. To say more on this would introduce a “spoiler”. Please read the book; careful, balanced and informative.
A final comment. The book will appear in the US (and elsewhere?) next year under a new title in which the irony of the Australian title is lost; and the two subtitles seem to me to have been watered down: America in Retreat. The Decline of US Leadership. From WW2 to Covid-19.

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