CIVILIZATION AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

by Louis J. Hall ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 1954

This Inquiry for Americans is an absorbing and, as Dean Acheson says in his introduction, illuminating book in which the fine thought of a member of the Policy Planning Staff for the Secretary of State serves to point out the practice and principle of American foreign policy. He considers the environment -- the world of the present divided mainly into nation states with the West the inheritor of Christendom; our own national character -- a nation devoted to the development of individual freedom under law; the interrelation of the two. He examines the nature and necessity of power, its components of force and consent and legitimacy. He explores the nature of the challenge to America in terms of Soviet Russia and Communism, Russia and China. The question of what our policy should be is coolly considered -- isolation, dominion, coalition- with eyes open to practice and principle. The dedication of the book to Clio is well made, for the lessons of the past are brought to bear in several parallels, the most compelling that of the great Thucydides and his Athens to our America. The approach is dialectical, with an answering acknowledgment of the dynamics of all components in the world picture and loyalty to the total view of nation in civilization. Insights are constant and compelling; the book is major in its quality of thought and its expression.

Pub Date: Jan. 19, 1954

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1954

Categories: NONFICTION