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Explores the cultural and political significance of the election of President Trump Donald J. Trump's presidency has delivered a seismic shock to the American political system, its public sphere, and to our political culture worldwide. Written by leading scholars across a range of disciplines, as well as professionals in the field of political journalism, this collection of essays offers a deeper understanding of Trump and the impact that his rise to power has had both domestically and worldwide. The first section provides varied perspectives on the realignments of political culture in the United States that signify a paradigm shift, a radical disruption of fundamental beliefs and values about the political process and national identity. The second section of the book focuses on US foreign policy and diplomacy, taking stock of how the Trump presidency has disturbed the international system and US primacy within it. The third section of the book addresses the dynamics and consequences of what has come to be called "post-truth" politics, where conviction surpasses facts and the norms of political communication have been profoundly disrupted. Liam Kennedy is Professor of American Studies and Director of the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin.

Examining the 21st century presidencies of the United States and their comparative policies, strategies, attitudes and behaviours towards the People's Republic of China. Comprehensively examines the three 21st Century U.S. presidential administrations and their foreign policies toward ChinaProvides a detailed analysis of Trump's first term in office　Focuses on the key security challenges relating to, among others, Chinese military modernization, South and East China Seas, the Indo-Pacific region, the Belt and Road Initiative, nuclear modernizationThis book draws critical attention to the core security challenges that have defined U.S. foreign policy in relation to China and its rise on the international stage. During the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama the traditional safeguards and stabilizers to strategic competition were broadly adhered to, albeit in some cases not without great difficulty. Under the leadership of Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping, however, these bulwarks have alarmingly diminished. Abrupt departures in engagement platforms and asserting regional defensive postures have become the new norms. With brevity and nuance, this book provides much needed connective tissue in examining these departures and their antecedents across the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. It reveals Washington and Beijing are moving towards a new period where, unlike previous ones, this one will be characterised by an amplified preponderance of competition, and the enhanced probability of conflict and confrontation.

This is a necessary and urgent read for anyone concerned about the United States' endless wars. Investigating multiple genres of popular culture alongside contemporary U.S. foreign policy and political economy, Imperial Benevolence shows that American popular culture continuously suppresses awareness of U.S. imperialism while assuming American exceptionalism and innocence. This is despite the fact that it is rarely a product of the state. Expertly coordinated essays by prominent historians and media scholars address the ways that movies and television series such as Zero Dark Thirty, The Avengers, and even The Walking Dead, as well as video games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, have largely presented the United States as a global force for good. Popular culture, with few exceptions, has depicted the U.S. as a reluctant hegemon fiercely defending human rights and protecting or expanding democracy from the barbarians determined to destroy it.  

More than a decade into the new millennium, the fusion of corporate and state power is the essential defining feature of US foreign policy. This edited volume critically examines the relationship between corporations and the US state in the development of foreign policies related to globalization. Drawing together a wide range of contributors, this work explores the role of corporations in using US foreign policies to advance the interests of transnational capital in a wide range of contexts, including: how US government policies have contributed to the globalization of production and finance the ways in which transnational corporations have influenced the US relationship with China, a crucial linkage in the new era of transnational accumulation how transnational corporate power has shaped capital-labour relations, humanitarian intervention, structural adjustment policies, low-intensity democracy and the G20 summits the "corporate centrism" of the Obama Administration, whose policies have been consistent with the growing power of transnational capital in US foreign policymaking the politics and consequences of the embedded relationship between various sectors of the transnational capitalist class, global institutions and the US state, including the limits and contradictions of this relationship during the ongoing capitalist crisis. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of both US foreign policy and international political economy.