Publisher's Synopsis
Fukuyama explores the contention by the Bush administration's critics that it had a neoconservative agenda that dictated its foreign policy during the president's first term. Providing a fascinating history of the varied strands of neoconservative thought since the 1930s, Fukuyama argues that the movement's legacy is a complex one that can be interpreted quite differently than it was after the end of the Cold War. Analyzing the Bush administration's miscalculations in responding to the post-September 11 challenge, Fukuyama proposes a new approach to American foreign policy through which such mistakes might be turned around-one in which the positive aspects of the neoconservative legacy are joined with a more realistic view of the way American power can be used around the world.