About the Author

Peter Beinart is an associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He is the senior political writer for The Daily Beast and a contributor to Time. Beinart is a former fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Good Fight. He lives with his family in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

"The Good Fight is a book filled with apt insights and common sense ... Recommended for liberals and conservatives." -- Madeleine Albright"Beinart has given Democrats a blueprint for ... taking back the White House." -- Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell"Peter Beinart takes us on a vigorous and entertaining search for a usable past ... His reasoning must be heard." -- Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter with Kansas"This is a brilliant and provocative book in a great tradition." -- Arthur Schlesinger, Jr."An intellectual archeologist, Beinart excavates that vanished intellectual tradition and sends it into battle in his new book." -- The Washington Post"Beinart, in his deftly argued new book, . . . helpfully grounds the current debate in its oft-forgotten history." -- The Boston Globe"Insightful, provocative." -- Thomas Friedman, The New York Times"A thoughtful, provocative, well-written book." -- Washington Monthly

This stimulating manifesto calls for a liberalism that battles Islamist totalitarianism as forthrightly as Cold War liberals opposed Communist totalitarianism. Former New Republic editor Beinart assails both an anti-imperialist left that rejects the exercise of U.S. power and the Bush administration's assumption of America's moral infallibility. America shouldn't shrink from fighting terrorism, despite civilian casualties and moral compromises, he contends, but its antitotalitarian agenda must be restrained by world opinion, international institutions and liberal self-doubt, while bolstered by economic development aid abroad and economic equality at home. Beinart offers an incisive historical account of the conflicts straining postwar liberalism and of the contradictions, hubris and incompetence of Bush's actions. He's sketchier on what a liberal war on terror entails-perhaps a cross between Clinton's Balkan humanitarian interventions and the Afghanistan operation, with U.S. forces descending on Muslim backwaters to destroy jihadists and build nations. The tragic conundrum of a fighting liberalism that avoids enmeshment in a Vietnam or Iraq (the author now repudiates his early support of the Iraq war) is never adequately addressed. Still, Beinart's provocative analysis could stir much-needed debate on the direction of liberal foreign policy. (May 30) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

"The Good Fight is a book filled with apt insights and common sense ... Recommended for liberals and conservatives." -- Madeleine Albright"Beinart has given Democrats a blueprint for ... taking back the White House." -- Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell"Peter Beinart takes us on a vigorous and entertaining search for a usable past ... His reasoning must be heard." -- Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter with Kansas"This is a brilliant and provocative book in a great tradition." -- Arthur Schlesinger, Jr."An intellectual archeologist, Beinart excavates that vanished intellectual tradition and sends it into battle in his new book." -- The Washington Post"Beinart, in his deftly argued new book, . . . helpfully grounds the current debate in its oft-forgotten history." -- The Boston Globe"Insightful, provocative." -- Thomas Friedman, The New York Times"A thoughtful, provocative, well-written book." -- Washington Monthly