Product Description

In 2003, George Soros published the controversial international bestseller, The Bubble of American Supremacy - a powerful and persuasive indictment of the Bush Administration's foreign policy and its invasion of Iraq. He predicted dire consequences to our brash, unilateral actions. The past year has proven these predictions prophetic.

Now Soros is racing to get his message to America again. Before the 2004 presidential election is decided. Before it is too late. America, he argues, cannot afford another Bush Administration. And in The Bubble of American Supremacy he makes why abundantly clear.

Contrary to what they claim, Soros contends that the policies of the Bush Administration have endangered the safety of our people, undermined the most fundamental American values, and set back the vital interests of our nation. Nowhere is this more clear than Iraq, Soros writes, where the Bush war and occupation have cost 1,000 American lives nearly $150 billion in taxpayers dollars, and severely eroded our global reputation.

There is still hope to recover some of what we have lost. That hope lives, or dies, with the 2004 presidential election. If the electorate rejects Bush in 2004, Soros argues, America may - with a constructive new vision - recoup something of its former standing in the world. But if Bush is re-elected, he argues, the American people will have endorsed the Administration's policies. The cost of that will be enormous. And it will be ours to pay.

George Soros wants to remind America of the real costs of Bush's war in Iraq - and the true stakes of the 2004 presidential election. More than timely, his message is urgent. It needs to be heard. That's why we are rushing the paperback edition of The Bubble of American Supremacy to stores this October, before this crucial election takes place.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #321071 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-12
• Released on: 2004-10-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781586482923
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Proving that exorbitant wealth and allegiance to the Republican Party do not necessarily go hand in hand, billionaire George Soros offers a sharp critique of the neoconservative philosophy that he sees guiding the George W. Bush administration. In The Bubble of American Supremacy, Soros warns that American efforts to be the ultimate global superpower will not only be unsuccessful but will make America and the world infinitely more unstable. Bush and company, he says, have callously used the events of September 11th for their own political gain and misled the world about the threat posed by Iraq. In previous American presidential elections, billionaires Steve Forbes and Ross Perot have tried to run for president themselves to address the country's problems, but Soros--while no less zealous about his convictions--sees his role a little differently. "I have made it my primary objective to persuade the American public to reject President Bush in the upcoming elections," he writes, "We have been deceived." The arguments he makes and the evidence he presents are interesting enough, although there really isn't anything here that hasn't been written in scores of other anti-Bush books released around the same time. What sets Soros's book apart from all the others is the recurring presence of Soros himself, frequently citing previous books he's written, speeches he's made, and highlights of his career. The pronoun "I" is never far away. Granted, it's been an interesting career; his financial success coupled with his passionate political convictions would make for a terrific memoir, but at times in this book Soros's ego gets almost comically in the way. Referring to his long-held support for open societies, he says this philosophy "could almost be called the Soros doctrine" only to renounce propriety over it a page later. Soros is a capable writer and a clear thinker, and he ably articulates his views. Readers interested in criticisms of Bush and company have several options but readers interested in George Soros will find plenty to satisfy them here. --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly
Soros has made it his "primary objective to persuade the American public to reject President Bush in the forthcoming elections." This aspiration is immediately clear from the outset of his new book. The founder of Soros Fund Management (and author of The Crisis of Global Capitalism, etc.) gives sweeping critiques of the current administration and shows how its post-9/11 policy has pointed the country in a direction that he believes will lead to ruin. The book's major shortcoming is that it fails to add anything particularly new to this project, and is not always convincing. It's not clear, for instance, why a pact of signatories to the Warsaw Declaration for the development of democracy would be more effective than the U.N. in getting nations to put the common good above national interest. To his credit, Soros accurately presents the important dimensions of the "Bush Doctrine" foreign policy and its vision of America's role in the world. He is able to incorporate his expertise in areas of international finance and to give some interesting and unique insights, such as seeing American supremacy as the boom part of a boom-bust cycle. But neither simple explication nor periodic nuggets of wisdom make this a particularly good read. Overall, the book is clear, but it will do little to persuade an attentive American audience that they should vote Bush out in 2004.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

George Soros has a heart of gold and resources to match. At the London School of Economics, Karl Popper's vision of the "open society" came to underlie Soros's political thinking. Soros settled in the United States in 1956. His success as a financial speculator of genius included his legendary 1992 bet against the pound sterling, which netted him more than $1 billion in a few weeks. After he amassed a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $7 billion, he turned his attention to a unique philanthropic goal -- promoting open, decent, democratic society throughout the world -- an effort to which he has contributed nearly $5 billion. Wags described him as the only individual with his own foreign policy and suggested during the Clinton era that Soros does what the American government would do if it had the money. By itself, his imaginative role in undermining the Soviet Union and nudging the nascent democracies developing throughout its former empire would qualify him as a secular saint.

In The Bubble of American Supremacy, Soros's basic contention is that the Bush administration has deliberately and deceptively exploited the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in order to pursue radical policies "that the American public would not have otherwise tolerated." He views the Bush dream of American supremacy as unobtainable -- and a contradiction of America's traditional principles. Soros passionately believes that Bush's policy "endangers our values as well as our security." And because America is so powerful, he also argues, the Bush agenda also endangers the world.

Soros traces his sensitivity to the language of political extremism to his own background. "I grew up as a Jew in Hungary during World War II. I lived through both German and Soviet occupation and learned at an early age how political systems can affect your very survival. When I hear President Bush say that 'either you are with us or you are with the terrorists' I hear alarm bells." He has a similar reaction when John Ashcroft declares "to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists." Soros declares, "this is not the America I chose as my home."

Even though such criticisms score many palpable but conventional hits on administration targets, Soros's positions are often muddled. He urges that the United States should have treated the Sept. 11 attacks not as acts of war but as crimes against humanity and that "crimes require police work, not military action." If language has meaning, this would have ruled out the American attack on Afghanistan. But at another point Soros writes, "the invasion of Afghanistan was justified by its role as the home base of al Qaeda."

Forced analogies do not help. In characterizing the drift of Bush policy-making away from America's normal ideological equilibrium in global diplomacy, Soros compares it to the stock market's boom-and-bust cycle. Use of terms -- such as "reflexivity," "radical fallibility," "the human uncertainty principle" and "fertile fallacies" -- that require an explanatory appendix also does not aid the cause of clarity.

Soros asserts as facts propositions that are debatable. Did the perpetrators behind Sept. 11 want the United States "to react the way we did"? Other "facts" are simply wrong. John Ashcroft has not "banned plea bargaining," as anyone recalling the fate of John Walker Lindh or following prosecution efforts in the Enron scandal would realize. At other times, Soros floats predictions that are almost certainly wrong -- for example, that the president's approval rating "is likely to sink as low as it had been high." Here Soros is stating that before the election Bush's approval rating will go lower than that of any previous president. Last month, Soros forecasted that the economy would hold at least through the elections. This makes his prediction about the president's popularity even more incomprehensible. All too often, Soros finds it sufficient to state his view without any sustained effort to support his position.

It is startling to read a man who considers himself something of a philosopher acknowledging that he was "not even aware of natural rights until I started studying" the neoconservative "view of the world." He believes that "Leo Strauss, who supposedly influenced Paul Wolfowitz and other neocons, cottoned on the first sentence of the declaration [of Independence] and derived, from the idea of self-evident truths the concept of natural rights," a concept that Soros believes "plays an important role in the ideology of American supremacists." He thinks that natural rights are "associated with conservative arguments and papal pronouncements" and that it is appropriate to distinguish between his concept of the open society and natural rights.

As the Columbia Encyclopedia states, "the classic expressions of natural rights are The English Bill of Rights (1689), the American Declaration of Independence (1776), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), the First 10 Amendments of the Constitution of the United States (known as the Bill of Rights, 1791), and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations (1948)." There is no opposition between the open society as expounded by Soros and the doctrine of natural rights.

Soros does not have either Henry Kissinger's talent for describing the complexities of the political world or Paul Krugman's ability to deploy relentless logic to skewer the Bush administration. Rather, his strength is in grasping the big picture, determining how he can make a difference, and succeeding in improving the world. He has pledged that "I shall do everything I can" to ensure that the president is defeated in this November's election. He has already contributed more than $12 million to that cause. Given Soros's track record, the president should be worried.

Reviewed by Daniel I. Davidson

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Soros offers hope for America
If you think the foreign policy of President George Bush is inept and leading America into a quagmire, then you'll love this book; Soros offers the intelligent businessman's solution to the conservative quicksand.

Consider the background of Soros and Bush. Soros survived the Nazis and Communists in Hungary, got to the US in 1956 and had enough business acumen to become a billionaire. Bush is the son of Old Establishment money and political patronage who never earned a cent in his life, always relying on his Daddy's wealthy friends. Soros became rich by understanding the motivations and actions of others; Bush became president because political advisers Karl Rove and James Baker saw him as a pliant puppet,

Does that make either man a foreign affairs expert? No.

Soros' foreign expertise comes from the $500 million he spends every year to encourage genuine democracy around the world. Bush's policy comes from a narrow group of American Supremacist reactionaries who advocate a unilateralist approach which other nations may join but not influence. Therein lies the difference between the two: Bush has an America First policy, Soros advocates cooperative international solution.

Who is right? Well, in the world of business, Soros' ideas of cooperation instead of confrontation works well. He outlines his approach with an articulate skill in this book, criticizing the Bush mistakes and saying other nations can offer invaluable help. Soros is the modern equivalent of President Woodrow Wilson who created the League of Nations, a brilliant idea which failed due to American isolationism and its failure to counter aggression. Like Wilson, Soros believes in rational people making intelligent decisions.

In brief, it is the essence of his book. I recently re-read 'Common Sense' by Thomas Paine, the 1776 book that was the intellectual foundation for the American Declaration of Independence. Soros has written the modern international equivalent, as well-reasoned, eloquent and impassioned as Paine. However, there is a difference. Paine faced King George III, who may have been nuts but was obviously very astute. Today, America faces an amorphous irrational terrorism based on an utterly insane religious fundamentalism.

Events in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Mid-East countries may well have an impact on the 2004 election. The choice will be between American Supremacist in a "follow us or get ready to fight us" tactics or a policy based on American Leadership with a "we'll respect your views" type of consultation and cooperation.

Soros has been there. As a Jew in his native Budapest, he survived in the impact of the "Germany Above all Others" policy. He survived the utterly irrational communist fundamentalism. America made him vastly rich. He has been funding democratic programs in Europe since the 1980s. It's an incredible personal schooling on which to base his views.

The 2004 election debate will likely be on the economy, with foreign policy as the runner-up. Much of the talk show debate involves extremists screaming at each other; Soros offers an intelligent alternative to the current quagmire.

Powerful Mind From Finance Illuminates Murky Politics
We all should be grateful to George Soros. After having worked hard for several decades and made a fortune, he could do anything he wants, go anywhere he likes. What he chooses is to use his wealth to help people around the world. In writing this book, he has spent his precious time to alert Americans to the dangers they face from their own government. Unlike many a pundit, Soros is not looking for personal gain or seeking political appointment. He is one of the most astute observers around, and a rare one who is not pursuing a personal interest.

Listen to Soros, folks. It is worth getting this book just to read his insights as to why Bush really went to war in Iraq and contrast the reality he presents to the misleading pap offered by the administration. Truth may be uncomfortable, but ignoring it gets one into bad messes. Soros predicted a quagmire well before many people realized the consequences of the ill-conceived foreign adventure. No surprise; he is well attuned to deception by powers-that-be.

From his early years in Hungary to his later efforts to help build civil society in Eastern Europe, he saw close up the horrors that have been inflicted by lying, lawless, thuggish governments. His concern that America is sliding in that direction deserves to be taken seriously. Bush partisans are demonizing Soros for his pains and attempting to smear him every which way they can. Americans can judge for themselves by reading this book.

People complain that Soros rambles in his writing or his arguments are not always clear or fully argued. Considering the grave issues at hand, stylistic quibbles sound petty in the extreme. And while Soros is certainly not the only writer on the topic, he brings to it an exceptional skill for analysis. One benefits from reading him whether he is analyzing markets or a war. In any case, this book is easy to read.

Enlightening and Foreboding View of The Future
Soros is a self-made businessman and honest philanthropist - an unusual mix in this day-and-age. He has no hidden agenda, no political career aspirations, or behind-the-scenes mouths to feed.
It is this reason that this honest and clear perspective on the current Administration's political and military tactics and overall strategic direction is enlightening.
He is not burdened with the career aspirations of so-many other writers - he can write as he sees and backs it up with clear quotes and examples.
As a 'foreigner' living in the USA, and achieving my goals through the freedom afforded me by this country, I recognize the need for the protection of this BUT Soros provides an insightful comment on where this might lead us all - from victims to perpetrators of even greater atrocities on a global scale.
An excellent book that all should read for balanced commentary on the state of the world and America's part in the future.