by Elizabeth Borgwardt
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Product Description
In a work of sweeping scope and luminous detail, Elizabeth Borgwardt describes how a cadre of World War II American planners inaugurated the ideas and institutions that underlie our modern international human rights regime. Borgwardt finds the key in the 1941 Atlantic Charter and its Anglo-American vision of "war and peace aims." In attempting to globalize what U.S. planners heralded as domestic New Deal ideas about security, the ideology of the Atlantic Charter--buttressed by FDR's "Four Freedoms" and the legacies of World War I--redefined human rights and America's vision for the world. Three sets of international negotiations brought the Atlantic Charter blueprint to life--Bretton Woods, the United Nations, and the Nuremberg trials. These new institutions set up mechanisms to stabilize the international economy, promote collective security, and implement new thinking about international justice. The design of these institutions served as a concrete articulation of U.S. national interests, even as they emphasized the importance of working with allies to achieve common goals. The American architects of these charters were attempting to redefine the idea of security in the international sphere. To varying degrees, these institutions and the debates surrounding them set the foundations for the world we know today. By analyzing the interaction of ideas, individuals, and institutions that transformed American foreign policy--and Americans' view of themselves--Borgwardt illuminates the broader history of modern human rights, trade and the global economy, collective security, and international law. This book captures a lost vision of the American role in the world. (20070101)
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Principles to Shape the Postwar World, 2007-03-05
Elizabeth Borgwardt begins "A New Deal for the World" with a dramatic narrative describing a meeting between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. In August 1941, the two Allied leaders shook hands for the first time on board an American warship in the Atlantic Ocean. There they drafted a public statement of Allied principles and war aims intended as a message to the nations of the world. Its rhetoric stood in stark contrast to the brutal nationalistic expansionist agendas of Germany, Japan, and Italy. The Atlantic Charter agreed upon by Roosevelt and Churchill sketched out a postwar world of free trade, national self-determination, and global peace maintained by an international organization. According to Borgwardt's analysis, the charter declared political and civil rights to be fundamental, implied that populations deserved some measure of economic justice, and suggested that individuals as well as nations had specific rights.
Many saw the charter as a ploy to win global support for the Allies through bold promises and noble rhetoric. Borgwardt suggests that even if this were the case, the charter was important because it created a new standard that the Allies would have to live up to or be labeled hypocrites. She argues that vision relayed by the Atlantic Charter inspired people fighting for freedom around the world. For instance, Nelson Mandela claimed that the charter "reaffirmed faith in the dignity of each human being" and served as an inspiration for his anti-colonial activities in South Africa (p. 29). Churchill disagreed with this broad interpretation of the document, framing its promise of national self-determination as covering only the European countries occupied by Nazi Germany, not third-world countries (particularly not colonies under British control). Roosevelt, on the other hand, explicitly stated that the Atlantic Charter applied to all the world's nations (p. 36).
The Atlantic Charter was not a legally binding international treaty; it was more of a statement of principles. When the press questioned Roosevelt about this fact, he emphasized that the document's legal unenforceability should not diminish its importance. He compared it other aspirational statements like the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, and even the Ten Commandments (p. 43).
Borgwardt disagrees with historians who claim the ideological makeup of the Roosevelt Administration fundamentally changed as the nation shifted from depression to world war. She emphasizes the role true-believing New Dealers continued to play in the wartime government. In her view, "a new iteration of the New Deal was becoming nothing less than America's vision for the postwar world," as defined by the principles of the Atlantic Charter (p. 50). Borgwardt's research demonstrates that it was during World War II that the term "human rights" gained its modern meaning and shifted into popular use.
Borgwardt focuses on what she labels as the "multilateralist moment" in American political discourse at the war's end. Polls of the United States' population showed strong support for American membership in international organizations at this time. She notes that the American public did not voice this kind of globalist enthusiasm at the end of World War I. She concludes that one key reason for the increase in American trust of international agencies was people's experience with the New Deal of the 1930s. She argues that the programs of the Roosevelt Administration transformed the nation's perception of what governments and institutions could successfully accomplish. She also cites oral histories showing that overseas service during the war made enlisted men more cosmopolitan-minded and less isolationistic.
Borgwardt argues that the Bretton Woods Agreements, which created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, were a product of this uniquely internationalistic period of time. She portrays these plans for the postwar global economy as an admirable attempt to avoid the type of trade wars that had been so damaging during the 1930s. There was some reluctance to accept these agreements among members of the United States Congress, and Borgwardt suggests that only the heavily multilateralistic zeitgeist of this period allowed the Bretton Woods Agreements to be politically viable.
The American people concluded that the creation of a United Nations organization was necessary to maintain global peace and security. Borgwardt notes that Democrats gained seats in the 1944 elections, and Republican isolationists fared badly. Some anti-internationalists who were still in office, such as Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, converted to the multilateralist cause. The United States Senate had defiantly rejected the League of Nations after the First World War, but in 1945 it voted overwhelmingly in favor of signing the UN Charter.
The United States backed away from initial plans to summarily execute captured Nazi leaders, instead opting to conduct a war crimes trial in Nuremberg. The Americans organizing the hearing drafted the Nuremberg Charter, which for the first time established internal "crimes against humanity" to be in violation of international law. Borgwardt rightly notes that signs of American hypocrisy were already showing at this point, because on the same day the Allies signed on to the moralistic Nuremberg Charter in 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb upon the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Nevertheless, Borgwardt portrays the Nuremberg Charter as a notable codification of Atlantic Charter principles. She insists that the Nuremberg trials set an important precedent by successfully doling out "measured judicial retribution" to the violators of international law (p. 247).
Borgwardt notes that, although internationalism quickly fell into decline after the "multilateralist moment" came to an end, the institutions formed in the mid-1940s had "the staying power to outlast the Cold War" (p. 251). She argues that the United Nations, the most significant of the fruits of Roosevelt's New Deal for the world, promoted decolonization and "helped resolve international disputes in...the International Court of Justice" (p. 270).
Borgwardt notes that, over the past 60 years, U.S. foreign policy has too often failed to live up to the principles of the Atlantic Charter. Particularly in the past five years, the American government has been rejecting multilateralism entirely. Borgwardt characterizes this trend as a dangerous folly. She laments the American failure to capitalize on a "refreshed reservoir of goodwill" from foreign nations in the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks (p. 283). Critics of "A New Deal for the World" will likely question its relevance in an age where American cooperation with the rest of the international community seems extremely limited. However, the emergence of American unilateralism may make the book more important, because it serves to show just how much American governmental action and public opinion about the wider world has changed over the past 60 years.
Borgwardt's trenchant analysis is, of course, not the only possible interpretation of Allied motivations. However, even if the skeptics are correct in assuming the drafters of the Atlantic Charter never intended to pursue the principles contained within that document, Borgwardt convincingly establishes that its precepts still retain significance, because they provided a foundation for the postwar international human rights movement.
Borgwardt's elegantly-written work effectively integrates compelling narratives with conceptual analyses. It includes both vivid descriptions of historical events and intellectually stimulating discussions of international law. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in American history, international relations, or human rights activism.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Wide ranging and intelligent, 2007-01-18
Engaging, erudite, and thorough, "A New Deal" is an excellent read. At heart, it is a clever and deft history of the building of the post WWII world order and the founding moment of the modern human rights movement. Borgwardt views this momentous historical moment through the lens of Roosevelt's New Deal. She details in turn the founding of each of the three pillars of the post WWII world order (the Nuremberg trials, the Bretton Woods agreements, and the U.N. charter) and presents a compelling narrative in which the founding of these institutions was a natural extension of Roosevelt's New Deal philosophy. Borgwardt draws a parallel between the New Deal belief that (domestic) economic security is critical to (domestic) political stability with the post-war project of building international security through encouraging human rights worldwide.
However, Borgwardt's book should not be classified as a mere history. Meticulously researched, it sweeps a wide net, pulling from an impressive variety of sources. She adroitly and effortlessly weaves connections across a wide array of disciplines: philosophy, history, political theory, economics and sociology to name a few. The result is a thought provoking book that does tell a history, but in a manner that challenges the reader to understand these post-war institutions in many simultaneous contexts. Because of the complexity of some of the subject matter, readers will benefit from background knowledge in some of these fields, especially economics or political theory. Nonetheless, the book stands on its own as well.
In our current political context in which multi-lateralism has become a dirty word in Washington, this book is even more timely and valuable. A must read for anyone seeking to understand the post WWII world order, the history of human rights, or the history of America's role in world politics. A recommended read for anyone else.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
A Clear Vision of History, 2005-11-11
A NEW DEAL FOR THE WORLD is an excellent and timely book, incisive in analysis and gracefully written. It demonstrates how the imperatives of the New Deal and expanded outward into international affairs. Beginning with the Atlantic Charter (1941), Borgwardt captures the idealistic aspects of that document, while also indicating how American ideals and policy have worked in the postwar world - sometimes with good, sometimes with problematic aspects. Borgwardt stresses the importance of ideas, and she anchors her work in political and foreign policy history. She is learned on all counts. A must read for anyone interested in the issue of America and Human Rights.
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