August 29, 2011

Jeremi Suri: An American history of nation-building

Americans are a nation-building people, and in his new book, Liberty’s Surest Guardian, Jeremi Suri looks to America’s history to see both what it has to offer to failed states around the world and what it should avoid. He finds that "the framers of the Constitution initiated a policy of cautious nation-building, hoping not to conquer other countries, but to build a world of stable, self-governed societies that would support America’s way of life. Yet no other country has created more problems for itself and for others by intervening in distant lands and pursuing impractical changes." Suri, a Stanford graduate (A.B., 1994) and a former CISAC fellow, is currently the Mack Brown Distinguished Professor for Global Leadership, History, and Public Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. Read more »