For years, Joe Biden has portrayed the presidency of Donald Trump as an aberration from which the United States can quickly recover. Throughout the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, Biden asserted that under his leadership, the United States would be “back at the head of the table.” But a return to the pre-Trump status quo is not possible. The world—and the United States—have changed far too much. And although hailing the return of American hegemony might seem comforting to Americans, it reveals a degree of tone-deafness to how it sounds to the rest of the world. When people elsewhere look...…For years, Joe Biden has portrayed the presidency of Donald Trump as an aberration from which the United States can quickly recover. Throughout the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, Biden asserted that under his leadership, the United States would be “back at the head of the table.” But a return to the pre-Trump status quo is not possible. The world—and the United States—have changed far too much. And although hailing the return of American hegemony might seem comforting to Americans, it reveals a degree of tone-deafness to how it sounds to the rest of the world. When people elsewhere look...WW…

AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usReviewed:edited by Michael D. Gordin and G. John IkenberryPrinceton University Press, 431 pp., $99.95; $32.95 (paper)by Fred KaplanSimon and Schuster, 372 pp., $30.00by William J. Perry and Tom Z. CollinaBenBella, 268 pp., $27.95by Jeffrey LewisMariner, 294 pp., $15.99 (paper)Seventy-five years ago, at 8:16 on the clear morning of August 6, the world changed forever. A blast equivalent to more than 12,000 tons of TNT, unimaginably larger than that of any previous weapon, blew apart the Japanese city of Hiroshima, igniting a massive firestorm. Within...…AdvertisementSubmit a letter:Email usReviewed:edited by Michael D. Gordin and G. John IkenberryPrinceton University Press, 431 pp., $99.95; $32.95 (paper)by Fred KaplanSimon and Schuster, 372 pp., $30.00by William J. Perry and Tom Z. CollinaBenBella, 268 pp., $27.95by Jeffrey LewisMariner, 294 pp., $15.99 (paper)Seventy-five years ago, at 8:16 on the clear morning of August 6, the world changed forever. A blast equivalent to more than 12,000 tons of TNT, unimaginably larger than that of any previous weapon, blew apart the Japanese city of Hiroshima, igniting a massive firestorm. Within...WW…