Presidents & Bureaucrats: The Politics of Foreign PolicyThe Imperial Republic: The United States and the World, 1945-1973. By Raymond Aron Beyond the Water's Edge: America's Foreign Policies. By Howard Bliss and M. Glen Johnson New Forces in World Politics. By Seyom Brown The Great Detente Disaster: Oil and the Decline of American Foreign Policy. By Edward Friedland , Paul Seabury

Abstract

In the wake of Watergate and the Vietnam debacle, few presidents or bureaucrats would split hairs, as John F. Kennedy seemed to do when he said of his administration: Domestic politics .., .can only defeat Foreign policy can kill us. For scholars too, once cherished distinctions between domestic and foreign politics now seem artificial. Eight books on the recent past, present, and future of American foreign policy will be analyzed on the basis of how adequately they deal with the mingling of domestic and foreign concerns and with the policymaking processes that involve presidents and bureaucrats as allies and enemies.