National security and core values in American history / William O. Walker III.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-322) and index.

Commerce, expansion, and republican virtue -- The first national security state -- The postwar era and American values -- The construction of global containment -- Civic virtue in Richard Nixon's America -- Core values and strategic globalism through 1988 -- The false promise of a new world order -- Globalization and militarism -- The War on Terror and core values -- Conclusion: the security ethos and civic virtue.

Drawing upon themes from the whole of the nation's past, William O. Walker III presents a new interpretation of the history of American exceptionalism, that is, of the basic values and liberties that have given the United States its very identity. He argues that a political economy of expansion and the quest for security led American leaders after 1890 to equate prosperity and safety with global engagement. In so doing, they developed and clung to what Walker calls the "security ethos."