Andrew Bacevich

The Great Betrayal By Patrick J. Buchanan Little, Brown. 384 pp. $22.95 Readers of a certain age will recall when the tariff seemed the very stuff of American history. So at least we were led to believe. Once the standard textbook narrative got past 1865, arcane controversies over trade policy . . . . Continue Reading »

I The overarching theme of twentieth-century geopolitics has been America’s success in prevailing over its competitors for global power. A century ago, the United States was a continental power exercising only a peripheral influence on international politics. Today, having outlasted, exhausted, . . . . Continue Reading »

The muddy Illinois River ranks among the least distinguished of the Mississippi’s tributaries, a brown expanse of water sliding past slippery banks strewn with refuse. From time to time, after heavy rains, the river jumps its traces. But such floods disrupt only momentarily the rhythm of life . . . . Continue Reading »

Their Blood Cries Out: The Growing Worldwide Persecution of Christians by Paul Marshall Word, 304 pages, $12.99 This book bears all the earmarks of being a loser. The title alone will induce a cringe from prospective readers for whom detachment and irony comprise the reigning hallmarks of . . . . Continue Reading »

The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order By Samuel P. Huntington Simon &Schuster, 367 pages, $26 Widely heralded prognostications to the contrary notwithstanding, history has not ended. Rather, it continues to advance, implacable and perverse as ever. Indeed, according to this . . . . Continue Reading »

For students of strategy, the most persistent controversies revolve around elementary issues. Is strategy an art or a science? How far beyond military operations does the realm of strategy extend? What precepts should guide strategic analysis? Or is it an error even to presume the existence of such . . . . Continue Reading »

The End of the Nation-State By Jean-Marie Guéhenno Translated by Victoria Elliott University of Minnesota Press, 145 pages, $19.95 This is a very small book with very large aspirations. As a display of intellectual panache, it is also unmistakably European”the literary equivalent of a . . . . Continue Reading »

The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectuals and Foreign Affairs, 1945-1994 By John Ehrman Yale Univeristy Press, 241 pages, $27.50 This slender volume delivers somewhat less than its imposing title promises. If it covers the ground assigned, it seldom probes beneath the surface. Useful as far as it . . . . Continue Reading »

The Southern Tradition: The Achievement and Limitations of an American Conservatism. by Eugene D. Genovese. Harvard University Press. 138 pp. $22.50 This is a compelling and provocative book. The work of a devout (though by his own admission chastened) leftist who is also one of this country’s . . . . Continue Reading »

The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991. By Eric Hobsbawm. Pantheon Books. 627 pages, $30 Eric Hobsbawm ranks among the most prolific and most influential British historians of the entire postwar era. He is also a person who, throughout his long career, has without apology identified . . . . Continue Reading »