A cogent, detailed policy review, effectively studded with first-person recollections, that probably won’t sway Obama’s...
A measured insider’s account of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, arguing that the very aspects that bring conservative derision represent subtle, long-term strengths.
Chollet (co-author: The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World, 2011, etc.), who served Obama for six years in positions including assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs, relies on his heavyweight credentials and personal perspective in a spirited, thoughtful defense of how Obama responded to both George W. Bush’s missteps and the spiraling chaos that has greeted his own goals. He argues that the cool, cerebral Obama has pursued an oft-misunderstood “long game,” relying on long-term planning that has minimized the risks of Iraq-style quagmires. “Obama is like a foreign policy version of Warren Buffett,” writes the author, “a profoundly pragmatic value investor.” Like a tycoon’s discreet adviser, Chollet positions himself as a defender of Obama’s ambitions, portrayed as feckless by those for whom “the answer is almost always for the US to do more of something and to act ‘tough.’ ” Aptly, the author begins with the “red line” crisis presented by Syria’s chemical weapons; Obama was called weak for a restraint that led to the repressive regime relinquishing those munitions. Chollet then looks backward, arguing that Democrats felt a mandate in 2008 to remake foreign policy in line with Obama's broader advocacy of change: “The ascendance of the Bush/Cheney foreign policy was a key impetus behind Obama’s rise.” Yet despite Obama’s mandate to take a leaner approach to fighting terrorism while resolving conflicts in the Middle East, cascading crises in Libya and Egypt and the rise of the Islamic State group seemingly point out the limitations of Obama’s long-distance planning. As Chollet avers, “for Obama, the greatest threat that ISIS poses is that in responding to it, we lose sight of the Long Game.” With respect to Vladimir Putin’s aggressive Russia, the author notes, “Obama’s alleged ‘weakness’ did not drive Putin’s aggression.”
A cogent, detailed policy review, effectively studded with first-person recollections, that probably won’t sway Obama’s conservative critics.Pub Date: June 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61039-660-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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