Talk:Walter Russell Mead
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Mr. Mead's intellect is astounding as is the clarity with which he expresses his ideas. His writings are a necessary read for a student of American Foreign policy who wishes to analyze its past and make accurate predictions for its future.
Sorry, I have to disagree. Mead makes many assumptions about the international system that quite frankly are enormous stretches. To say his writing is supremely clear is absurd and while I do not doubt that he has a tremendous intellect, it fails to show itself in his writings.
His book Special Providence is a rather simplistic and systemless approach to understanding American foreign policy. He seems to have intelligent "gut" assumptions about the direction of American policy, and an impressive knowledge of the facts surrounding those assumptions but provides little in the way of explaining the question of why those directions are taken.
Some indications from Mead indicate that he seems to think that it's more important to create a "useful mythology," than actual history in his works.
