The Janus-faced practice of liberalism in the United States is a topic of longstanding interest to scholars and pundits alike. Mary L. Dudziak’s Wartime: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences offers a bold new addition to this discussion. Dudziak seeks to explain, specifically, why the United States as the leading liberal great power in history so easily enters into periods where it willingly accepts, better yet openly endorses, the sudden suspension of freedom of speech, the adoption of new civil rights- violating domestic surveillance methods, the use of torture, and knowingly inhumane methods of warfare, like drone strikes, that kill innocent civilians.