Rating: 
Summary: Glad I read this book
Review: An interview with the author on the radio made me get this book. What I like best about the book is its critique of the new imperialism. The author does a very good job of tracing its origins and development and explaining how it relates to general trends in American society. I think I now understand what was previously a puzzle to me. What I am not as sure about is the author's general assessment of what is going wrong with America. As a liberal Democrat I have difficulty with his prejudice against a growing federal government. There are dangers with it, I agree, but we need the federal government to help build a better America. I have to admit that I find the author's arguments challenging. He is refreshingly unpredictable. I wonder where he stands politically.
Rating: 
Summary: Have to hand it to the author
Review: At first I didn't like the way this book sounded at all. It went against to many of my assumptions and made me uncomfortable. But something made me stick with the book and the more I read the more I could see that I needed to rethink some of my beliefs about conservatism and America. The perspective is unusual, I don't understand it completely, and I still have to get used to it, but I don't think that I can every go back to what I used to think about Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and some others. Believe me, I didn't want to go in this direction. But the author has arguments and facts that I can't ignore. A lot becomes a lot clearer in my mind. I have to give him credit.
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Summary: Bush's Puppeteers Grasp for Glory
Review: Everyone puzzled at GWB's radical shift from his promise of a "humble" foreign policy and modest domestic programs in 2000 must read this book!!
Bush the Younger, evidently a decent man, has been led to change his views, to act on them, and to demean the principles of history and the U.S. Constitution by "neo-conservatives," many of whom began infiltrating the first Reagan Administration after allegedly being "Scoop Jackson Democrats."
Unfortunately, neo-cons have almost nothing to do with conservatism. Instead, they are crusaders bent on toppling the USA's rich and unique historic experiences, and its superb 1789 Constitution in favor of ahistorical "shared principles" emanating from their own superior brains.
Ryn identifies their beliefs as historically similar to the Jacobins of the vile revolution in France and more properly names neo-cons as neo-Jacobins.
Ryn makes a good case for his assertion that wild-spending, interventionist, and anti-civil liberties activities at home -- all in the context of a mega-government -- and crusaderism overseas in the name of forced democracy emanate from neo-Jacobin thinking.
It's such a pity that neo-Jacobins claim to be conservatives, or to defend the values of truth, justice and the American way, since it comfuses all and gives the more traditional, constitutionalist position a bad name.
Finally, Ryn notes the immense media influence of neo-Jacobin talking heads. Even many Democrats spout a variant of the neo-Jacobin line, including John Kerry. The U.S., they say, exists to remake the world -- not by humility and example, but by might and endless virtue. Here at home, the only solution is a surveillance state, combined with intrusive, profligately expensive government.
Thinking people will find much in Ryn's work; even opponents or real Jacobins may find it interesting. Neo-Jacobins will want the book to be ignored or, in the spirit of their democratism, to squash Ryn like a bug.
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Summary: How we got into this war
Review: I am glad I heard this author on the radio and checked out his book. It's clear to me now: America has been pushed into an aggressive posture in foreign policy by imperialist thinkers and actors who want the U.S. to dominate the world,ostensibly for the sake of democracy.In the end they are most interested in power and in advacing their own hidden purposes. Because they build on utopian ideas and are breaking with the older American political tradition, they are doing great damage to American institutions and liberties domestically and creating hatred of the U.S. abroad. America the Virtuous relates the ideas of American neo-Jacobinism to a general decline of American culture, but the author also shows that this political movement is just a symptom of a much larger problem with modern America. I was vaguely aware of some of this before, but now I can see it clearly. Although the book deals mostly with ideas rather than practical politics,it is a pleasure to read. You don't have to be a scholar to find it engaging and enlightening.
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Summary: Ground breaking, shatters political ideology as we know it!
Review: I found this book to be very informative concerning the modern transformation of political thought in America and about the significant shift in American foreign policy that has taken place in the last two years. Anyone involved in foreign policy and/or the study of political ideology can not afford to miss reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: As good as its reputation
Review: I kept seeing favorable mentions of this book and wondered if it could be as god as all that. It is. Before reading it I couldn't really explain the social and political phenomena that have me worried about my countrys future. America the Virtuos gets to the bottom of many of thse problems and shows what's wrong. And so well-written: clear as crystal.
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Summary: Just read this
Review: I saw somewhere that this book is a "blockbuster," and got a copy. It is a brainier book than I expected. It really explains the current quest for empire and how it grows out of a deteriorating american society. I learnt a lot! The book is engrossing. Read this if you want to know what dangers we face and how we might save ourselves!
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Summary: the best short book on the geneology of neoconservatism
Review: it's hard to gain a sense of scope, in a short book, of the depth of the malicious current which now afflicts american politics in the fascist redux of neoconservatism. ryn does admirably, tracing the mindset of radical/revolutionary polarized idealism such as we see today in neoconservatism to the rousseauian jacobins.
ryn concentrates revealingly on the revolution within the form that has taken place in america, including the onset of political euphemism and the perversion of abstract words like "freedom", "capitalism" and "democracy" such that they mean now nearly the opposite of what they once meant. using the same words with wildly different meaning is the mechanism by which the united states pretends to adhere to the old lockean/puritan values of its founders while betraying them on every front. it is a central point in understanding the political development of america in the 20th and 21st centuries as it moves to totalitarianism.
it's extremely difficult for any short book to cover western militant idealism as it has evolved from plato through the renaissance and counter-enlightenment to modern decadence and fascism, and ryn to her credit tries to concentrate her field of view in a very complex topic. that necessarily means oversights, of course, and many aspects of idealism's intellectual development are left untreated -- most notably, the heavy influence of trotsky, himself something of a new jacobin and the advocate of perpetual revolution.
but the book remains a compelling foundation for her thesis and potentially represents brutally enlightening reading for many americans who think fascism "ended" in 1945 and could never happen here. the unfortunate truth appears to be that is has been happening here for decades, and is moving to an endgame.
Rating:
Summary: My only complaint
Review: My only complaint is that this book is mostly about ideas and does not go very far into how the "new Jacobins" push through their own agenda. Did Mr. Robert Hynes skip parts of the book? Ryn repeatedly says that many people who have new Jacobin opinions do not really understand them or that they promote a certain goal. These people remind me a bit of the "useful idiots" the communists use to rely on. The pure Jacobins know better what they are up to.
Rating: 
Summary: Origins of the Neoconservative Fraud
Review: Professor Ryn's focus of this book is the theoretical political underpinnings of the neoconservatives who have urged President George W. Bush to use preemptive strikes against other countries to impose a new virtuous empire of universal (or American, from the view of opponents) values on the world. He documented how the neoconservative worldviews are contrary to the worldviews of America's founders and of conservatives. By careful examination of the neoconservative's use of terms such as democracy and capitalism, Professor Ryn has shown how it is possible for ideologues with Trotsky origins to take control of some key positions in a Republican Party administration. Some examples are:1.The French Revolution origins of the neoconservative worldview. While neoconservatives trace their origins to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and to Leon Trotsky, Professor Ryn has chosen to extend the genealogy further back to the French Revolution (started in 1789 and ended with the Reign of Terror of 1793 - 1794). Maximilien Robespierre (1758 - 1794) used Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Social Contract (1762) as the basis for Jacobin positions: (a) They represented virtue, freedom, and popular rule. Anyone who opposed the Jacobins represented evil and oppression. (b) They split on the need to go to war with Europe or to reform themselves. (c) In the Reign of Terror, they used dictatorial war powers to send even some supporters of the French Revolution to the guillotine. British statesman Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797), regarded as the father of modern conservatism, was highly critical of the Jacobins, mob rule, and the Reign of Terror. By contrast, Professor Ryn noted that the American Revolution was counter-revolutionary. Americans were protesting that the King and Parliament were violating the inherited rights of Englishmen. Professor Ryn has documented well that the worldviews of neoconservatives are contrary to the worldviews of America's founders and of conservatives. Throughout the book, Professor Ryn used the terms Jacobin and neo-Jacobin more than neoconservative to trace the origins of their views. Unfortunately, Professor Ryn's book did not include extensive critical evaluations of neoconservative individuals, institutes, and media. Professor Ryn mentioned some of the names. Some of the neoconservative individuals he mentioned included: Vice President Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz (Department of Defense), Irving Kristol, William Kristol (Weekly Standard, a magazine financed by Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Fox News Channel and of many newspapers in the world), Norman Podhoretz (Commentary), Richard Perle, William Bennett (The Book of Virtues), Ben Wattenberg, Michael Novak, Elliot Abrams, and Charles Krauthammer. Neoconservatives do not describe themselves as neo-Jacobin in television interviews or in their writings. Neoconservatives claim to be conservatives. Professor Ryn's approach might appeal to political science scholars but does not go far enough in helping typical voters detect fraudulent conservatives. 2.Communist capitalists. In a chapter on Jacobin Capitalism, Professor Ryn made an excellent contribution by showing how neoconservatives have concealed left-wing views in seemingly right-wing labels. Professor Ryn noted (page 145), for example, that Michael Novak used "democratic capitalism". If you think that Novak is talking about Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, you are dead wrong. Professor Ryn quoted Karl Marx and Frederick Engels' The Communist Manifesto (1848): 'The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization.' Marx and Engels regarded capitalism as an important step in breaking down traditional societies. After capitalism, Marx and Engels believed there would be evolutions to socialism and to the stateless society of communism. Unfortunately, Professor Ryn did not even mention that the neoconservatives have political ties to Trotsky and Trotsky's support for immediate worldwide revolutions. Professor Ryn's Prologue, "War without End", or even his book does not even mention Trotsky. While Professor Ryn's book might be a valuable contribution for political science scholars and students, there remains an urgent need for new books intended for mass audiences on the dangers of the neoconservatives. For example, Professor Ryn, a political science professor at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, did not mention that a Marxist terrorist organization operated from the National Press Building in Washington, DC, for more than ten years. These Marxist terrorists contributed money to Democrats and to Republicans. Over this period, hundreds of members of Congress have signed statements of support for these Marxist terrorists. On September 12, 2002, President George W. Bush distributed a background document at the United Nations listing three terrorist organizations operating from Iraq. Al-Qaeda was not on the list. President Bush listed the Marxist terrorist organization supported by hundreds of members of Congress. Initially, the major reason for invading Iraq was not weapons of mass destruction. The major reason for invading Iraq was that this was a continuation of the international war on terrorism. On January 15, 2003, a full-page advertisement appeared in the New York Times (page A19) naming 6 members of Congress who support these Marxist terrorists and claiming that 150 members of Congress had signed statements of support. Shortly after this advertisement appeared, the American military entered Iraq and killed large numbers of these Marxist terrorists in their camps. In June 2003, the French police arrested the leader of these Marxist terrorists and many supporters. Some supporters responded by burning themselves to death in front of television cameras. The Fox News Channel responded by retaining one of the Marxist terrorist spokespersons as a foreign analyst. Neoconservatives continue to support this Marxist cult and to advocate the Marxist takeover of another country. If Americans really want to end terror in the world, they can start by voting out of office the 150 members of Congress who supported the Marxist terrorists in Iraq our American troops had to fight. Professor Ryn noted (page 106) that Attorney General John Ashcroft has scolded those who are concerned about the possible curtailment of American liberties. Professor Ryn did not note that Ashcroft supported the Marxist terrorists in Iraq.
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