Towards a “New Deal” for the World? Lyndon Johnson and the Renewal of America’s Liberal Hegemony

This chapter re-appraises Lyndon B. Johnson’s aspirations to foster a global New Deal and to redefine America’s international role in and beyond the cold war during the transformative decade of the 1960s. It seeks to open up new perspectives on the mainsprings – and limitations – of Johnson’s attempts to reinvigorate the United States’ liberal hegemony in the “western world” and to expand a Pax Americana in the “developing world” by placing them in a broader context: the history of US endeavours to recast global order in the 20th century.