The United States stands at a historic crossroads; essential to the world yet unappreciated. America’s decline in popularity over the last eight years has been nothing short of astonishing. With wit, brilliance, and deep affection, Ted Widmer, a scholar and a former presidential speechwriter, reminds everyone why this great nation had so far to fall. In a sweeping history of centuries, Ark of the Liberties recounts America’s ambition to be the world’s guarantor of liberty. It is a success story that America, and the world, forgets at its peril. From the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United States, for all its shortfalls, has been by far the world’s greatest advocate for freedom. Generations of founders imbued America with a surprisingly global ambition that a series of remarkable presidents, often Democratic, advanced through the confident wielding of military and economic power. Ark of the Liberties brims with new America’s centuries-long favorable relationship with the Middle East; why Wilson’s presidency deserves reappraisal; Bill Clinton’s underappreciated achievements; how America’s long history of foreign policy immediately touches on the choices we face in 2008. Fully addressing America’s disastrous occupation of Iraq, Ark of the Liberties colorfully narrates America’s long and laudatory history of expanding world liberty.
Author
Edward (Ted) Ladd Widmer (born 1963) is a historian, writer, and librarian, who served as a speechwriter in the later days of the Clinton White House. His parents were Eric G. Widmer and Ellen B. Widmer. As of 1992, his father was working as Dean of Admissions and financial aid at Brown University, and his mother was an Associate Professor of Asian Languages and Literatures at Wesleyan University. Ted Widmer obtained an A.B. in the history and literature of France and the United States, an A.M. in history, and a Ph.D. in the history of American civilization from Harvard University. Widmer was appointed lecturer on history and literature at Harvard University from 1993 until 1997. He then spent a few years working with Bill Clinton, both during and after Clinton's presidency. He was the special assistant to the president for national security affairs, writing foreign policy speeches, and subsequently was the senior advisor to the president for special projects, advising on history and scholarship related issues. He conducted interviews with Clinton while Clinton was writing his autobiography. He was the first director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and an associate professor of history at Washington College from 2001. On July 1, 2006 he was appointed director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
