Ronald Steel

Ronald Steel is Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, a recent fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, and the author of biographies of Walter Lippmann and Robert Kennedy. (June 2006)

From the Review

June 22, 2006: All You Need Is Love

A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan by Michael Kazin

December 2, 2004: James Chace (1931–2004)

September 23, 2004: Where It Began

1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs—The Election That Changed the Country by James Chace

April 29, 2004: George Kennan at 100

November 20, 2003: The Missionary

Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations by Lloyd E. Ambrosius

Woodrow Wilson by H.W. Brands

Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations by John Milton Cooper Jr.

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan, with a foreword by Richard Holbrooke

Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House by Phyllis Lee Levin

October 18, 2001: Big Daddy

Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy edited by Amanda Smith

May 17, 2001: 'Mr. Fixit' (letter)

October 5, 2000: Mr. Fix-It

Woodrow Wilson by Louis Auchincloss

March 26, 1998: 'Instead of Nato' (letter)

January 15, 1998: Instead of NATO

February 1, 1996: 'Temptations of a Superpower' (letter)

September 23, 1993: Shultz's Revenge

Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State by George P. Shultz

August 13, 1992: A Self-Made Man

Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal by Townsend Hoopes, by Douglas Brinkley

Eberstadt and Forrestal: A National Security Partnership, 1909–1949 by Jeffrey M. Dorwart

A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War by Melvyn P. Leffler

September 26, 1991: Casualty of the Cold War

The Polk Conspiracy: Murder and Cover-up in the Case of CBS News Correspondent George Polk by Kati Marton

October 11, 1990: Pacem in Terris (letter)

August 17, 1989: Guest of the Age

Sketches From A Life by George F. Kennan

George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy by David Mayers

Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy by Anders Stephanson

June 29, 1989: A Gent of Dissent

The Price of Empire by J. William Fulbright, with Seth P. Tillman

September 29, 1988: The Strange Case of William Bullitt

So Close to Greatness: A Biography of William C. Bullitt by Will Brownell, by Richard N. Billings

November 6, 1986: Looking Backward

Thinking in Time:The Uses of History for Decision-Makers by Richard E. Neustadt, by Ernest R. May

May 30, 1985: The Ancient Mariner

No More Vietnams by Richard Nixon

A Vietcong Memoir by Truong Nhu Tang, with David Chanoff, by Doan Van Toai

February 16, 1984: Where Modern Politics Began

The Warrior and the Priest by John Milton Cooper Jr.

October 21, 1982: On the Brink of Dulles

John Foster Dulles: The Road to Power by Ronald W. Pruessen

February 18, 1982: Ike Plus Eight (letter)

January 21, 1982: Dulles and Eisenhower (letter)

September 24, 1981: Two Cheers for Ike

The Eisenhower Diaries edited by Robert H. Ferrell

The Declassified Eisenhower by Blanche Wiesen Cook

Eisenhower and the Cold War by Robert A. Divine

Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment by Stephen E. Ambrose

Eisenhower the President: Crucial Days, 1951-1960 by William Bragg Ewald Jr.

Eisenhower's Lieutenants by Russell F. Weigley

April 2, 1981: Lippmann & Schwimmer (letter)

September 25, 1980: Seduction and Betrayal

August 14, 1980: All in the Family

Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy by Herbert S. Parmet

Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance by Michael R. Beschloss

June 26, 1980: Perfectly Clear

The Real War by Richard Nixon

March 23, 1978: Rough Passage

The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective by Walter LaFeber

The Truth about the Panama Canal by Denison Kitchel

Surrender in Panama: The Case Against the Treaty by Philip M. Crane

July 14, 1977: Russia, the West, and the Rest

The Cloud of Danger: Current Realities of American Foreign Policy by George F. Kennan

Revolution in the Third World by Gerard Chaliand

September 19, 1974: All About Henry

Kissinger by Marvin Kalb, by Bernard Kalb

August 8, 1974: Was This Empire Necessary?

The Imperial Republic: The United States and the World, 1945-1973 by Raymond Aron

"Lessons" of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy by Ernest R. May

The Logic of World Power: An Inquiry into the Origins, Currents, and Contradictions of World Politics by Franz Schurmann

The Cold Warriors: A Policy-Making Elite by John C. Donovan

October 18, 1973: A Cold War Battle (letter)

June 14, 1973: The Good Old Days

Peace in the Balance by Eugene V. Rostow

Power and Equilibrium in the 1970s by Alistair Buchan

The New Left and the Origins of the Cold War by Robert James Maddox

The United States and the Origins of the Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis

May 31, 1973: The Power and Old Glory

A New Isolationism: Threat or Promise? by Robert W. Tucker

The Limits of Power by Joyce Kolko, by Gabriel Kolko

Witness to History by Charles E. Bohlen

October 19, 1972: Cooling It

Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis by Graham T. Allison

The Cuban Missile Crisis edited with commentary by Robert A. Divine

Cold War and Counter-revolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy by Richard J. Walton

The Kennedy Doctrine by Louise Fitzsimons

The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy by Alexander George, by David Hall, by William Simons

June 29, 1972: The New Hustle in Haiti

May 18, 1972: Who Started the Cold War? (letter)

September 2, 1971: Did Anyone Start the Cold War?

Condemned to Freedom by William Pfaff

The Radical Left and American Foreign Policy by Robert W. Tucker

Promises to Keep by Chester Bowles

Architects of Illusion by Lloyd Gardner

Yalta by Diane Shaver Clemens

America and Russia in a Changing World by W. Averell Harriman

From Trust to Terror by Herbert Feis

The Yalta Myths by Athan Theoharis

The Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 by Stephen E. Ambrose

November 19, 1970: The Kennedy Fantasy

The Kennedy Legacy by Theodore Sorensen

American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy Interviews by Jean Stein, edited by George Plimpton

No Hail, No Farewell by Louis Heren

Who Needs the Democrats? by John Kenneth Galbraith

February 12, 1970: Commissar of the Cold War

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson

September 11, 1969: Letter from Oakland: The Panthers

May 8, 1969: An Exchange on the Missile Crisis

March 13, 1969: Endgame

Thirteen Days by Robert F. Kennedy, with Introductions by Harold Macmillan, by Robert S. McNamara

February 13, 1969: Inside Dope

The Case Against Congress by Drew Pearson, by Jack Anderson

Behind the Lines: The World of Drew Pearson by Herman Klurfeld

Memoirs by Arthur Krock

JFK and LBJ by Tom Wicker

September 26, 1968: Up Against the Wall in Prague

September 12, 1968: Impossible Dreams

Intervention and Revolution: The United States in the Third World by Richard J. Barnet

The Discipline of Power by George W. Ball

The Insecurity of Nations by Charles Yost

Gulliver's Troubles, Or the Setting of American Foreign Policy by Stanley Hoffmann

Conditions of World Order edited by Stanley Hoffmann

April 11, 1968: Letter from Havana

February 15, 1968: Greece (letter)

January 4, 1968: Man Without a Country

Memoirs 1925-1950 by George F. Kennan

November 9, 1967: Letter from Greece

June 29, 1967: Color Clash

The Race War by Ronald Segal

Color and Race

April 6, 1967: Recent Fiction

American Strategy: A New Perspective by Urs Schwarz

Escalation and the Nuclear Option by Bernard Brodie

Arms and Influence by Thomas C. Schelling

On the Uses of Military Power in the Nuclear Age by Klaus Knorr

October 6, 1966: A Visit to Washington

July 28, 1966: The Day They Buried NATO

Europe's Future: The Grand Alternatives by David P. Calleo

Germany and the Atlantic Alliance by James L. Richardson

June 9, 1966: War Games

The Liddell Hart Memoirs: 1895-1938

Deterrence and Strategy by André Beaufre, translated by Major-General B.H. Barry

March 17, 1966: The Magician

The Three Lives of Charles de Gaulle by David Schoenbrun

January 6, 1966: Mr. Clean

Waging Peace: 1956-1961 by Dwight D. Eisenhower

November 25, 1965: Doomsday

The Decision to Drop the Bomb by Len Giovannitti, by Fred Freed

Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam by Gar Alperovitz

Day of Trinity by Lansing Lamont

Hiroshima Plus 20 prepared by The New York Times, Introduction by John W. Finney

July 15, 1965: Up the Doomsday Ladder

On Escalation—Metaphors and Scenarios by Herman Kahn

Nuclear War: The Impending Strategic Deadlock by Neville Brown

May 20, 1965: Hitting the SAC

Design for Survival by General Thomas S. Power

February 25, 1965: Atomic Wedlock

The Great Debate: Theories of Nuclear Strategy by Raymond Aron, translated by Ernst Pawel

Books by Ronald Steel

In Love with Night: The American Romance with Robert Kennedy (2000)
Temptations of a Superpower (1995)
Walter Lippmann and the American Century (1980)
Pax Americana (1977)
Imperialists and Other Heroes; A Chronicle of the American Empire (1971)
North Africa (1967)
Italy (1963)