Describing the events of 9/11, President Bush asserted that “All of this was brought upon us in a single day, and night fell on a different world.” With these words he reinforced a general perception that the world had changed irrevocably and utterly on one September day in 2001. It was a day we will always remember, and the president was articulating an emotional truth—but not an analytical one.

America Between the Wars shows that America did not change in one day. The tragedy of 9/11 and its aftermath had its origins twelve years earlier, when the world really did shift in ways that were incomprehensible at the time. Strangely, the date mirrors a much happier moment: it was November 9, 1989—11/9—when the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War was effectively over.

During the last decade of the twentieth century, America and the West declared victory. Democracy and the free market had prevailed, and the United States emerged as the world’s triumphant superpower. The finger-on-the-button tension that had defined an earlier generation was over, and it seemed that long-lasting peace was at hand. The next twelve years passed in a haze of self congratulation and inward preoccupation—what some now mistakenly call a “holiday from history.” When that complacency about the world shattered on September 11, 2001, confused Americans asked themselves: How did we get here?

Renowned foreign policy analysts Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier provide a compelling answer to that question. They blend deep expertise and broad access to the key players across the political spectrum in a narrative of how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today. By doing so, this is the first book that examines these years as a distinct and decisive era in American history.

America Between the Wars reveals the ways that debates about America’s role in the world framed the intense political struggles between Republicans and Democrats. It is an important inside story of a generation of leaders grappling with a decade of dramatic transformation. This book changes how we should think about the recent past, and uncovers important lessons for the future.

“With expertise, literary facility, and a degree of narrative talent not normally found in policy wonks, [the authors] explicate all the key issues that emerged after the Cold War ... More impressively, they situate their discussion of these issues within a complicated matrix of newly scrambled partisan politics. It's a significant historical contribution.”
—David Greenberg, Slate magazine "Best Books of 2008"

“[The authors] have written an astute and highly informed book, lucidly mapping the forces that have been reshaping the post-cold-war world ... insightful.”
—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

“Compelling.”
—Matt Bai, New York Times Magazine

“Provocative. ... A careful explication of why things are as they are, with all those old arguments continuing to sizzle and pop—suggestive and highly useful for those seeking to reshape policy in the near term.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“An indispensable history to the decade preceding 9/11. You can’t understand today’s American crisis without understanding how we got there. This book tells us, eloquently and compellingly.”
—Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the UN

“This book will likely stand as the definitive work on the politics, people,and ideas involved in the foreign policy debates of the 1990s. It shows how, in the decade before September 11, both Republicans and Democrats, both liberals and conservatives, struggled to come to grips with post–Cold War issues such as the use of military force, the promotion of democracy, and the proper U.S. role in the world. This is a lucidly written history, devoid of rhetoric and full of invaluable information.”
—James Mann, author of Rise of the Vulcans

“America Between the Wars is a deeply researched, well-written account of U.S. foreign policy in the first post–Cold War decade. Authors Chollet and Goldgeier should be commended for being comprehensive and fair-minded. Truly essential reading.”
—Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University and
fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy

“Here is an excellent account of how the United States and the world changed from the conclusion of the Cold War to the al-Qaeda attacks of 2001. The history of diplomacy and international affairs are inseparable from the history of politics; but it is extremely difficult to do them all justice in a single book. Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier not only succeed, they succeed in style—and they provide a persuasive and entirely original way of understanding America’s role in global affairs during a pivotal dozen years.”
—Sean Wilentz, professor of history at Princeton University and author of The Age of Reagan

“In America Between the Wars, Goldgeier and Chollet examine the decade between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the destruction of the Twin Towers and offer illuminating insights into the forces that have reshaped today’s world.”
—Henry Kissinger

“This book is a gem of current history, a scrupulously fair and highly readable piece of old-fashioned scholarship. Chollet and Goldgeier, two of the most promising young foreign policy experts, now allow us to argue about the ten-year run-up to 9/11 and know what we're talking about.”
—Leslie H. Gelb, former New York Times columnist and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations

“Chollet and Goldgeier have written a highly informative, engaging, and accessible account of the period between America’s most recent major wars—the Cold War and the War on Terror. In this balanced and well written story, they argue that 9/11 did not change everything and that in order to analyze America’s challenges today, one must understand the foreign policy debates and clashes of the 1990s.”
—Lee H. Hamilton, president and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and vice chair of the 9/11 Commission

Derek Chollet is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC, where he also teaches at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. He served in the State Department during the Clinton administration, as foreign policy adviser to former U.S. senator John Edwards, and assisted former U.S. secretaries of state James A. Baker III and Warren Christopher with their memoirs. He has written or coedited three books on American foreign policy, and his articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Monthly, and numerous other publications.

James Goldgeier is a professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has authored or coauthored three books on foreign policy, and his articles have appeared in publications including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, Washington Post, Financial Times, and the Weekly Standard. He has held fellowships at Stanford University, the Brookings Institution, the Library of Congress, and the Woodrow Wilson Center, and has served at the State Department and on the National Security Council staff.