The Virtues of a ‘Laid Back’ Foreign Policy

The Virtues of a ‘Laid Back’ Foreign Policy

The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency by John Mueller. Cambridge University Press, 2021. Hardback, 342 pages, $28. Reviewed by Michael J. Ard John Mueller, professor emeritus from the Ohio State University, has long questioned the...
Joseph Kennedy, American Fascist

Joseph Kennedy, American Fascist

The Ambassador: Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. James 1938–1940 by Susan Ronald. St. Martin’s Press, 2021. Hardcover, 464 pages, $30. Reviewed by Carl Rollyson In this meticulous, relentless biography, Joseph P. Kennedy is now firmly established in the annals of...
Geopolitics in a Godless Age

Geopolitics in a Godless Age

Political Theology of International Order by William Bain. Oxford University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 272 pages, $85. Reviewed by John Ehrett Few academic fields today feel more unabashedly secular than international relations. Traditionally, the major division in the...
James Burnham: Marxist, 1933–1940

James Burnham: Marxist, 1933–1940

By Francis P. Sempa James Burnham (1905–1987), who became a leading anti-communist and prominent intellectual figure in American conservatism, began his professional intellectual career as a Marxist. His early writings appeared in leading Marxist and socialist...
Theodore Roosevelt and Statecraft for a World Power

Theodore Roosevelt and Statecraft for a World Power

First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power By Walter Zimmerman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. Hardcover, 562 pages, $15. Reviewed by Jack Beyrer Teddy Roosevelt was a man so vast he contained multitudes. For progressives, the...