The Case for American Power

Join Wisdom of Crowds and Aspen Philosophy & Society for the Washington, DC launch of Shadi Hamid’s new book The Case For American Power, featuring a debate between Shadi, Damir Marusic, and Bernie Sanders’ former foreign policy advisor Matt Duss.

What role should America be playing in the world?

In The Case for American Power (Simon & Schuster), Washington Post columnist and Wisdom of Crowds co-founder Shadi Hamid offers a deeply personal argument for why American dominance, despite its many flaws, remains the best hope for a more moral and just world. Matt Duss, who served as foreign policy advisor to Bernie Sanders, may disagree.

Come for drinks, food, and an all out debate expertly moderated by Damir Marusic.

Hamid’s book has received early praise from Noah Feldman, Francis Fukuyama, and more. Feldman says: “Hamid is a patriot — in the self-critical hopeful tradition of Baldwin and King. In this intensely personal book, Hamid wills himself to optimism, realism, and reason and calls for an America worthy of its ideals.”

Shadi Hamid is a columnist at The Washington Post and a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. From 2023 to 2024, he served on the Post’s edi­torial board. Hamid is the author of several books, including The Problem of Democracy and Islamic Exceptionalism, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize for the best nonfiction book on foreign affairs. In 2019, he was named one of the world’s top fifty thinkers by Prospect magazine. Hamid lives in Washington, DC.

Matthew Duss is the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy. He served as foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) from 2017–2022. He also served as foreign policy director for the Sanders 2020 presidential campaign. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, the New Republic, theNation, the American Prospect, and many other publications.