Volume 21, Number 13 · August 8, 1974
Was This Empire Necessary?
By Ronald Steel
The Imperial Republic: The United States and the World, 1945-1973
by Raymond Aron
Prentice-Hall, 339 pp., $10.00
"Lessons" of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy
by Ernest R. May
Oxford University Press, 220 pp., $6.95
The Logic of World Power: An Inquiry into the Origins, Currents, and Contradictions of World Politics
by Franz Schurmann
Pantheon, 593 pp., $15.00
The Cold Warriors: A Policy-Making Elite
by John C. Donovan
D.C. Heath, 294 pp., $3.95 (paper)
One of the ironies about America's adventure in empire-building is that just about the time we came around to admitting that it existed, the empire began to fall apart. Even its sharpest critics now approach the subject with scholarly analysis rather than indignation; their discussion is beginning to take on the air of a post-mortem rather than of a trial. This is not because the will to dominate has vanished, but because the means to bring it about have diminished. Though the spirit remains willing, the flesh is growing weak.
Review, 4124 words
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