America in Retreat: The Decline of US Leadership from WW2 to Covid-19

Michael Pembroke

Mar 2021 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Eric Jason Martin

About this audiobook

In the heady days after 1945, the authority of the United States was unrivaled and, with the founding of the UN, a new era of international co-operation seemed to have begun. But seventy-five years later, its influence has already diminished. The world has now entered a post-American era, argues Michael Pembroke, defined by a flourishing Asia and the ascendancy 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. It 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. Covering wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, interventions in Iran, Guatemala and Chile, and a retreat from international engagement with the UN, WHO and, increasingly, trade agreements, Pembroke sketches the history of America's retreat from universal principles to provide a clear-eyed analysis of the dangers of American exceptionalism.

About the author

Michael Pembroke was educated at the Universities of Sydney and Cambridge and was a Director's Visitor in 2017 at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. A former New South Wales Supreme Court judge (2010-20), he is the author of Korea: Where the American Century Began.

Eric Jason Martin is a producer, director, and voice performer based in Los Angeles. He is the AudioFile Earphones and Audie Award-winning narrator of over 200 audiobooks, including works by Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, Karin Slaughter, and Lee Child.