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{"title":"The Future of Power","authors":"L. J. Nigro","doi":"10.5860/choice.49-1724","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.49-1724","url":null,"abstract":"The Future of Power by Joseph S. Nye Jr. New York: Public Affairs Books, 2011 320 pages $16.99 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about. --President Barack Obama, 26 January 2012 This monograph presents Professor Nye's current reflections on the nature of power in international affairs and how states and nonstate actors will manage or mismanage) the power available to them in the future. The author artfully blends theory and history, concept and concrete example to make his case. His conclusions are sensible, centrist, and unsurprising. Among other things, he makes an important contribution to our understanding of current trends, especially in his analysis of the debate over whether or not the United States is \"in decline,\" either relatively or absolutely, in international affairs. Joseph Nye has been making important contributions to American foreign and national security policy and policy debates for decades. As a University Distinguished Service Professor and former dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Security Assistance, Science, and Technology (1977-79), chair of the National Intelligence Council (1993-94), Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (1994-95), and the author of many influential books, he has been one of the most prominent and consequential of the nation's public policy intellectuals. His theory of \"soft power\" introduced a new and useful concept to the panoply of political science tools for understanding the international system. With The Future of Power, Nye makes yet another important contribution to understanding how the international system works by updating his views on power while providing a refined version of his signature concept of soft power, offering significant arguments in the debates related to questions of America's alleged decline, and prescribing the use of \"smart power\" to US policymakers and implementers. As in so many of his previous efforts at explication, including his outstanding textbook, Understanding International Conflict: A Guide to Theory and Practice, Nye's writing in The Future of Power balances simplicity and accessibility with scholarly precision and documentation. Nye divides his exposition into three parts. First, in four chapters on \"Types of Power,\" he describes the nature of power in international affairs, and deals with military, economic, and soft power in detail. Second, in two chapters on \"Power Shifts,\" he educates his readers on the difference between power transition from one nation-state to another or others (a familiar historical process) and power diffusion from nation-states themselves to nonstate actors (a new phenomenon born of globalization and the information revolution): \"the problem for all states in today's global information age,\" Nye says, \"is that more things are happ","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":"42 1","pages":"94"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71135500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"State of War: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1945-2011","authors":"Paul A. C. Koistinen","doi":"10.5860/choice.50-4556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.50-4556","url":null,"abstract":"In his farewell speech, President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned us of the dangers of a military-industrial complex (MIC). In Paul Koistinen's sobering new book, that warning appears to have been both prophetic and largely ignored. As the final volume in his magisterial study of the political economy of American warfare, State of War describes the bipolar world that developed from the rivalry between the U.S. and USSR, showing how seventy years of defence spending have bred a monster that has sunk its claws into the very fabric of American life. Koistinen underscores how during the second half of the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first, the United States for the first time in its history began to maintain large military structures during peacetime. Many factors led to that result: the American economy stood practically alone in a war-ravaged world; the federal government, especially executive authority, was at the pinnacle of its powers; the military accumulated unprecedented influence over national security; and weaponry became much more sophisticated following World War II. Koistinen describes how the rise of the MIC was preceded by a gradual process of institutional adaptation and then supported and reinforced by the willing participation of Big Science and its industrial partners, the broader academic world, and a proliferation of think tanks. He also evaluates the effects of ongoing defines budgets within the context of the nation's economy since the 1950s. Over time, the MIC effectively blocked efforts to reduce expenditures, control the arms race, improve relations with adversaries, or adopt more enlightened policies toward the developing world--all the while manipulating the public on behalf of national security to sustain the warfare state. Now twenty years after the Soviet Union's demise, defence budgets are higher than at any time during the Cold War. As Koistinen observes, more than six decades of militaristic mobilisation for stabilising a turbulent world have firmly entrenched the state of war as a state of mind for our nation. Collectively, his five-volume opus provides an unparalleled analysis of the economics of America's wars from the colonial period to the present, illuminating its impact upon the nation's military campaigns, foreign policy, and domestic life.","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71141113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Keep from All Thoughtful Men: How U.S. Economists Won World War II","authors":"M. Fratantuono","doi":"10.5860/choice.49-2194","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.49-2194","url":null,"abstract":"Keep From All Thoughtful Men: How U.S. Economists Won World War II by Jim Lacey Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011 304 pages $34.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Over the past two decades, economic forces have contributed to changing structure and rising interdependence within the global system. As a result, national leaders and security analysts now factor economics into their strategic thinking. Despite that contemporary mindset, Professor Jim Lacey--a one-time US infantry officer and now consultant, analyst, and Ph.D. historian--believes that the majority of his colleagues and nearly all of the general public neither understand nor appreciate the leading role that professional economists played during the years 1941 to 1944. He attributes that blind spot to shortcomings in previous scholarly work. His goal is to set the record straight. Professor Lacey's central premise is that a small group of economists were able to demonstrate in authoritative terms that the strategic plans formulated during 1942 by political leaders and military officers were not economically feasible. As a result of their analysis, leaders decided to postpone a full-scale invasion of Europe from 1943 to June of 1944. If the economists had not been persuasive and the United States and her allies had moved ahead in 1943, soldiers, sailors, and airmen would not have had the material assets needed to achieve a decisive outcome. An earlier invasion of Europe would have certainly prolonged World War II which, in turn, would have necessitated much higher costs in terms of both blood and treasure; more speculatively, it may have even led to a different ultimate outcome. Professor Lacey highlights two innovations in the field of economics that were important to the war effort. First was the revolution in the conduct of monetary policy that proved to be essential in financing the war. That is, the policymakers at the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, became adept at influencing the actions of commercial bankers for the purposes of indirectly controlling the US money supply. They did so by using the tools that are now commonplace, such as altering required reserve ratios and discount rates and engaging in open-market operations. Those actions helped maintain high levels of liquidity in the banking system. That meant that private sector firms could borrow the funds they needed for investing in new plants and equipment at relatively low rates of interest. The key implications of those policies are first, that in contrast to the experiences of other countries in other wars, the US mobilization was financed as much by money creation as it was by government borrowing. Second, that in light of that first fact, mobilization occurred in a growing economy rather than in an economy of fixed magnitude. The second innovation was the creation of the so-called National Income and Product Accounts, which provide to this day the conceptual framework for measuring economic act","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":"42 1","pages":"129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71135619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Washington: A Life","authors":"J. Walmsley","doi":"10.5860/choice.48-6475","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.48-6475","url":null,"abstract":"Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow New York: The Penguin Press, 2010 904 pages $40.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Building on his recent biography of Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow has written an impressive biography of George Washington. Chernow's portrayal of Washington succeeds in presenting a fresh perspective that is both informative and inspiring. Unlike some of the more recent publications on Washington, Chernow presents him in a realistic manner that does not give in to attempts to mythologize his subject. Overall, the book provides a detailed analysis of the situations that influenced Washington and culminated in his earning the title of \"the father of his country.\" As the title implies, Chernow's study offers a complete account of Washington's life. Dividing his analysis into six phases, the author discusses Washington's role as frontiersman, planter, general, statesman, president, and legend. The result is an in-depth character study describing his family background, personal and professional relationships, and constant quest to improve himself and his standing in the eyes of others. The early analysis depicts a young man who was deeply ambitious, but struggled with insecurities due to his \"defective\" education. Denied a formal education due to his father's early death, Washington toiled hard to sharpen his intellect, all the while believing himself at a disadvantage when working with better-educated contemporaries. Undoubtedly, this inspired Washington to develop \"a seriousness of purpose and fierce determination to succeed, that made him stand out in any crowd.\" Chernow emphasizes that Washington, although often very lucky in his circumstances, benefitted most from his own resolve. Chernow's study demonstrates how Washington matured and grew into his responsibilities. It is the depiction of his subject's growth that is the most intriguing aspect of this work. His time in the wilderness as a surveyor and later as a militia leader during the French and Indian War inured him to hardship and prepared him for the challenges he would face as a commanding officer. Although an elitist, his time as Commander of the Continental Army transformed him into a more egalitarian individual who would slowly learn to love the men he initially looked down upon during the early days of the American Revolution. His time as Commander also reinforced a conviction of the importance of a strong centralized government. A weak Congress that was continually unable to collect sufficient funds from the states to support his forces plagued Washington throughout the war. Washington also benefitted from his political experience in Virginia's House of Burgess and the two sessions of the Continental Congress. He had learned early on the value of silence, and despite being surrounded by \"talkative egomaniacs,\" he grew into a \"calm figure of sound judgment\" able to unify the dynamic personalities that surrounded him as commanding general and president. Chernow knocks Washingt","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":"42 1","pages":"127"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71133870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom","authors":"Dennis M. Murphy","doi":"10.5860/choice.48-7161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.48-7161","url":null,"abstract":"The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov New York: Public Affairs, 2011 409 pages $16.99 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In January 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a highly touted speech on Internet freedom in which she stated, \"The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate. Once you're on the Internet, you don't need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society.\" Evgeny Morozov, in his book The Net Delusion, takes great issue with the implication, however, that the so-called \"Arab Spring\" and \"Twitter Revolution\" were caused by unfettered access to the Internet. Instead, Morozov, a research academic, provides a cautionary tale about what he argues is any attempt to establish a monocausal relationship to meaningful political change (especially when that single focus is information technology). The book opens with a discussion of cyber-utopianism and Internet-centrism--mind-sets that focus on the positive \"emancipatory\" aspects of Internet communication while ignoring the downsides. The argument throughout centers on nation-state policy, or lack thereof, that attacks the \"wicked\" problem of authoritarianism by, as a colleague of mine has dubbed it, \"wiring the world.\" Morozov, expectantly, but importantly, cites the hedonistic world portrayed by Huxley and the \"Big Brother\" world of Orwell to consider both the proactive and reactive approaches to Internet freedom by authoritarian regimes. Interestingly, he notes that there is often a mix of both. Such regimes certainly use the anonymity and openness of the Internet to spy on their people and shutdown undesirable sites. But there is also a subtle approach that belies the jackboot on the keyboard methodology. While China may be known more for suppressing the Internet and for employing the masses to counter antiregime rhetoric, Russia imposes no formal Internet censorship. It relies on entertainment (porn is specifically cited) to soothe the masses, assuming that given options for political discourse and anything else, most opt for \"anything else.\" Hitler would understand. And in nations where freedom is not widely understood from a western perspective, any bit of additional mindless diversion may be viewed as liberty by the populace. Perhaps most importantly, Morozov rails against social media determinism as driving the end of authoritarianism, labeling it \"an intellectually impoverished, lazy way to study the past, understand the present, and predict the future.\" He does not dismiss the value of Facebook and Twitter to quickly mobilize like-minded individuals. He notes as well that the development of that very like-mindedness is complex and potentially can be manipulated by authoritarian governments using the same Internet freedom. …","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":"110 1","pages":"122"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71134423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide","authors":"M. Hoffman","doi":"10.5860/choice.48-5004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.48-5004","url":null,"abstract":"Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide by Claudia Card New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010 329 pages $35.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Most readers view challenges of terrorism, torture, and genocide from a prevention oriented policy, operational, or legal perspective. This book offers an opportunity to look at these acts from a philosophical viewpoint. This reviewer began reading the book with doubts about its utility for his own work in genocide and mass atrocity prevention, not to mention doubts about his preparation to assess a book of philosophy. Confronting Evils is a useful text for readers possessing intellectual grit who welcome opportunities to examine and reassess the assumptions guiding their ideas and work. The book is presented in two parts. Part I explores the concept of evil and its various forms. Part II examines terrorism, counterterrorism, torture, and genocide. The book is presented as a sequential exploration and series of arguments, but each chapter holds up well as an individual essay that can be read with limited cross-reference to the rest of the text. Readers lacking education in philosophy will find this a well written and carefully presented study that helps them overcome this obstacle (except Chapter 2, where the ideas of Immanuel Kant come heavily into play.) Part I usefully explores the concept of evil. As Professor Card defines them, \"evils are reasonably foreseeable intolerable harms produced by inexcusable wrongs.\" It will be of interest to some readers that she draws on the law of war (referred to in the book as international humanitarian law or IHL) as one source of insight on the nature of evil. Part I considers not only harms to individual human beings and individuals as perpetrators, but also institutions as a source of the evils explored in the book. In what may sometimes be a stretch for readers, she also examines \"ecocide\" as an evil based on wrongs done to the environment. The greatest value of Part I is that it offers readers the chance to evaluate their own frame of reference for evil as a moral issue in international relations and national security. It might be wrong to say that Part I is intellectually clarifying--the whole book requires careful, patient reading--but it will lead a willing reader to attempt an objective examination of his or her operating assumptions. The most tangible benefit for the national security oriented reader comes in Part II. Professor Card usefully explores philosophical dimensions of terrorism, torture, and genocide in Part II. …","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":"41 1","pages":"161"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71133101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Beneficial Bombing: The Progressive Foundations of American Air Power, 1917-1945","authors":"T. Biddle","doi":"10.5860/choice.49-1654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.49-1654","url":null,"abstract":"Beneficial Bombing: The Progressive Foundations of American Air Power, 1917-1945 by Mark Clodfelter Lincoln, NE: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2011 392pages $40.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] \"It is a strange title: \"beneficial\" and \"bombing\" are not words that seem likely to appear in close proximity to one another. How, a reader might ask, can the concussive, explosive, and incendiary effects of aerial bombing-s40.00 including the splintering of infrastructure, the destruction of dwellings, and the loss of human life, sometimes on a vast scale--be considered \"beneficial\"? Author Mark Clodfelter contends that US advocates of aerial bombing, reacting to the great battlefront slaughter of World War I, offered an alternative form of war that would lead to quicker-and thus more humane--resolution to conflict. Clodfelter argues that the carnage and waste of the Western Front \"sparked the beginning of a progressive effort that was unique--an attempt to reform war by relying on its own destructive technology as the instrument of change.\" The airplane \"offered the means to make wars much less lethal than conflicts waged by armies or navies.\" He contends that the American contribution to this general idea was the envisioning of a precision bombing campaign based on sophisticated technology: \"The finite destruction would end wars quickly, without crippling manpower losses--maximum results with a minimum of death--and thus, bombing would actually serve as a beneficial instrument of war.\" The author is by no means the first to describe and explain the origins of American faith in \"precision\" bombing, and the \"industrial fabric theory of war\"; these have been the subject of extensive work by such authors as Conrad Crane, Richard Davis, Michael Sherry, Donald Miller, and others. But Clodfelter adds a new twist, arguing that the views of American airmen were rooted in the progressive tradition that, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, had influenced American political and social behavior, and driven the reforms advocated by Theodore Roosevelt and others. The author does not, however, offer a robust description of what the progressive movement was, or precisely why or how it would have such a dominant impact on American airmen. Sometimes the author equates \"progressive rhetoric\" with the idea that bombing would shorten wars; sometimes he links it to the more specific notion of the precision bombing of key industrial targets. Reviewing the book proved frustrating for this reviewer; while not convinced by the thesis, I nonetheless found the history itself to be informative, engaging, and well-articulated. The author writes well; in particular he has a marvelous ability to sketch characters on the page, bringing them to life with just a few deft brushstrokes. And the book is based principally on primary source material, making it rich in detail and illuminating. Clodfelter adds texture and insight to our knowledge of an important topic. And, in his final chapter, the","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":"41 1","pages":"151"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71135321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Quicksand'. America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East","authors":"C. Bolan","doi":"10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim220030037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim220030037","url":null,"abstract":"Quicksand'. America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East by Geoffrey Wawro New York: The Penquin Press, 2010 612 pages $37.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Quicksand is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of America's involvement with the Middle East. Wawro's academic background in military history and practical experience teaching at the Naval War College come through with force in a style that will particularly appeal to military professionals. The first third of Quicksand is especially enlightening as Wawro offers a fresh historical perspective informed by his meticulous research of military and diplomatic archives in the United States and London. This compelling narrative begins with the Balfour Declaration in 1917, and it is perceptively written from the perspective of key American and British policymakers. This is the best part of the book and will prove beneficial to scholars, students, and foreign policy practitioners alike. These first five chapters effectively chart America's deepening relationship with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt--countries that have frequently occupied center stage in American regional strategies. The author's two chapters on Israel tell the tragic story of Britain's ultimately irreconcilable promises to the Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine. Wawro casts blame directly on British and American leaders for pursuing shortsighted strategies that left the problem of Palestine \"insoluble\" while providing \"no practical means to intervene in Palestine and keep the peace between Jews and Arabs.\" At the same time, Wawro does not shy away from criticizing both Jewish and Arab leaders for their unwillingness to accept compromise, their failure to advocate mutual understanding, and their complicity in violence. His chapter on Saudi Arabia identifies the centrality of oil to US regional interests and vividly illustrates America's transformation from one of relative energy autonomy to one of strategic dependence on oil production from the Gulf. Faithful to his roots as a military historian, Wawro captures the essence of Saudi Arabia's importance to American strategy by describing the Kingdom in Clausewitzian terms as \"The Center of Gravity of World Oil Production.\" Protecting these energy resources from outside intervention has been America's strategic obsession. Wawro identifies two other key American military and economic interests in the region that derive directly from this emerging dependence: namely, the expanding network of US military bases throughout the region; and the growing economic importance of \"foreign sales of American weapons\" to regional clients. This insightful narrative of America's evolving strategy is laced with colorful prose from such historical figures as Lawrence of Arabia who described the harshness of the Saudi desert as \"Death in life.\" Wawro also successfully conveys the deeply seeded emotions inhibiting a solution to Arab-Israeli tensions by quoting King Ibn Saud who in","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":"41 1","pages":"126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64423439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Columbia History of the Vietnam War","authors":"J. Willbanks","doi":"10.5860/choice.48-5258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.48-5258","url":null,"abstract":"The Columbia History of the Vietnam War edited by David L. Anderson New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2010 488 pages $65.00 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the preface of this book, David L. Anderson states that his aim is \"to provide a reliable historical perspective on the Vietnam War to advance accurate scholarship and sound policymaking,\" while demonstrating that the war has striking relevance to contemporary issues and challenges. In pursuit of this goal, the editor provides a collection of essays on the Vietnam War by fourteen of the most recognized and acclaimed scholars of the war; the essays focus on the political, historical, military, and social issues that defined this controversial conflict and its continuing impact on the United States and Vietnam. Anderson, professor of history at California State University, Monterey Bay, and former president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations is eminently qualified to preside over this retrospective; his ten earlier books include Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam, The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War, and Facing My Lai: Moving Beyond the Massacre. Anderson opens the book with a short and concise overview of the Vietnam War that addresses the war's major moments and explores some of its major themes. He begins with a discussion of early Vietnamese history, French colonialism, the First Indochina War, and a focus on the American war in Vietnam. The author presents the historical antecedents of American involvement in Southeast Asia and continues through the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Anderson closes the introductory essay with a discussion of \"The War That Will Not Go Away,\" addressing a number of topics, such as American Vietnam veterans, the war in film and literature, and American foreign policy in the aftermath of the war. This brief introduction sets the stage for the essays that follow. The book is divided into three sections. The first section takes a chronological approach to discussing the war. Mark Philip Bradley provides a reexamination of Vietnamese revolutionary nationalism and the Vietminh-led war against the French. Richard H. Immerman looks at nation-building efforts and relations with the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in South Vietnam during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Gary R. Hess examines America's military commitment under Kennedy and Johnson, enumerating eight steps made during these administrations that deepened the American commitment. Lloyd C. Gardner discusses the motivations behind Johnson's escalation of force. Robert J. …","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":"41 1","pages":"155"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71134016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Battle of Marathon","authors":"J. B. Bartholomees","doi":"10.5860/choice.48-2847a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.48-2847a","url":null,"abstract":"The Battle of Marathon by Peter Krentz New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 2010 256 pages $27.50 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Peter Krentz, the W. R. Grey Professor of Classics and History at Davidson College, has written the definitive book on the battle of Marathon. In doing so, he examined all the available evidence from both historical and archaeological sources, utilizing that evidence, leavened with common sense, to expose myths and challenge conventional accounts. The analysis goes into detail on subjects about which the casual reader will have little interest. For example, the location of the Athenian trophy or the Plataean burial mound are generally unimportant to the military historian trying to learn about the battle itself. In the case of Marathon, Krentz argues such detail can give us otherwise unavailable clues. Because the ancient Athenians customarily placed their victory trophy at the turning point of an action, locating the monument tells a great deal about the battle. That example is perhaps more relevant than discussions of the location of the monument to Miltiades or the cave of Pan that are of primary interest only to the specialist. In any case, the examination is exhaustive, but regardless how esoteric, always interesting. Krentz's investigation of the geography of the Marathon plain in 490 BC is informative and critical to understanding the battle. Based on the as yet unpublished work of archaeologist Richard Dunn, Krentz convincingly postulates a different shoreline and the presence of a small inlet where a marsh lies today. Although one should generally avoid such redesigns of battlefield terrain, in the case of Marathon where contemporary descriptions are skimpy and the alluvial nature of the plain lends itself to major change in the 2,500 years since the battle, it is probably justified. The fact modern experts cannot even locate the ancient town of Marathon only lends credibility to an attempt to understand the geography from other sources. Krentz is judicious about his assertions and backs them with plausible evidence, so the reinterpretation is easy to accept. The new understanding of the terrain shapes his entire interpretation of the battle--most significantly in that it reorients the armies so they fight parallel to the coast rather than having the Persians with their backs to the sea, and the Persian cavalry, quartered behind the inlet near the best source of water, has restricted access to the plain. Following the pattern of his geographical investigation, Krentz also examines in detail the Athenian military system to help test one's knowledge about Marathon. For example, Herodotus, the principal primary source on the battle, says the Greeks ran 8 stadia (.9 of a mile) to attack the Persians. …","PeriodicalId":35242,"journal":{"name":"Parameters","volume":"41 1","pages":"120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71132370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}