The Lessons of Tragedy Statecraft and World Order

The Lessons of Tragedy : Statecraft and World Order
ISBN: 9780300238242
Publication Date: 23 April 2019

The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture.

By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility and courageto spur citizens and their leaders to take the difficult actions necessary to avert such a fate. Today, after more than seventy years of great-power peace and a quarter-century of unrivaled global leadership, Americans have lost their sense of tragedy. They have forgotten that the descent into violence and war has been all too common throughout human history. This amnesia has become most pronounced just as Americans and the global order they created are coming under graver threat than at any time in decades.

In a forceful argument that brims with historical sensibility and policy insights, two distinguished historians argue that a tragic sensibility is necessary if America and its allies are to address the dangers that menace the international order today. Tragedy may be commonplace, Brands and Edel argue, but it is not inevitableso long as we regain an appreciation of the worlds tragic nature before it is too late.

About the Authors

Hal Brands is an American historian. He is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Charles Edel is a senior fellow and visiting scholar at the United States Studies Centre. Previously, he was Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy at the US Naval War College, and served on the US Secretary of State's policy planning staff from 2015 to 2017. In th...