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Tomgram: Bacevich on the Misuse of American History

I recently wrote about Karl Rove's gamble that Americans would prefer a Green-Zone version of our world to grim political reality and that, in the process of telling "Green-Zone stories" to the public, it was useful if you could also "Green Zone" history -- enclosing small parts of the past (like the President's version of World War II) that were useful to you and sending the rest down the memory hole. As it happens, a recently published book from a liberal hawk offers another version of the Green-Zoning of history, as Andrew Bacevich indicates in a review that will appear in the latest issue of the Nation magazine and is posted here with the kind permission of that magazine's book editor, Adam Shatz.

Bacevich, historian, Vietnam Vet, and conservative, has been a fascinating figure in these last years. He himself is almost single-handedly in the process of reclaiming our history for us. His most recent book on how the neocons fell in love with American military might, The New American Militarism, is simply a must-have for any political library. To read more on Bacevich's views and experiences, check out his interview at Tomdispatch. Tom

The American Political Tradition

By Andrew J. Bacevich

The Good Fight: Why Liberals -- and Only Liberals -- Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. By Peter Beinart. HarperCollins. 288 pp. $25.95.

Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq. By Stephen Kinzer. Times. 384 pp. $27.50.

[This column, which will appear in the July 17/24 issue of The Nation Magazine, is posted here with the kind permission of the editors of that magazine.]

When it comes to foreign policy, the fundamental divide in American politics today is not between left and right but between those who subscribe to the myth of the "American Century" and those who do not. Peter Beinart is a true believer. In his eyes America's purpose today remains precisely what it has always been: to confront and destroy the enemies of freedom at home and abroad. In The Good Fight, he summons liberals to recover their crusading spirit and to "put anti-totalitarianism at the center of their hopes for a better country and a better world." Liberalism must become once again what it was in its heyday: "a fighting faith."

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