For Kagan, it is crucial to show that America’s early adventures abroad were not elite conspiracies, but moral undertakings with broad popular support.

In his judicious, vibrant The Ghost at the Feast... Robert Kagan excavates the transformational early decades of the 20th century and the nation's rocky emergence onto the global stage.

Where Kagan once insisted that neoconservatism was a birthright, now he wants to illuminate what goes wrong when Americans agonizingly give it up. Whatever his intentions, Kagan proves that interventionism is difficult to generate and sustain.

Where the author really begins to make his thesis for the book stand out is the analysis of the interwar years from 1919–1939.

Kagan is a fine writer and an indefatigable researcher. His book is the product of a monumental amount of work.

Kagan cogently examines what he considers certain inevitabilities... while delivering novel interpretations of events.