New York Review of Books

 
U.S. vs. Them: How a Half Century of Conservatism Has Underminded America's Security by J. Peter Scoblic
Enter your email address below and seven days a week a new review will arrive in your mail.

Email address:

Click here to read about Powells.com's privacy policy.

The Democrats & National Security
A Review by Samantha Power

[Ed. note: This review also covers Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats.]

1.

Since the Vietnam War the Republican Party has developed a reputation for having a superior approach to national security. Americans have long trusted the views of Democrats on the environment, the economy, education, and health care, but national security is the one matter about which Republicans have maintained what political scientists call "issue ownership."

Partly, this is for particular historical reasons. President Eisenhower initiated US involvement in Vietnam, and President Nixon escalated the war in 1969 and kept US troops on the ground in a manifestly unwinnable mission until 1975. But John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were tagged as the primary culprits. President Carter was widely seen as having bungled the Iran hostage rescue mission and having responded ineffectually to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Although he...
 
Read the entire review
More reviews from New York Review of Books

Previously Reviewed by New York Review of Books
Sort: by date | by title | by author

Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population by Matthew Connelly

This review also covers Reproducing Inequities: Poverty and the Politics of Population in Haiti In the 1920s it was illegal to advertise contraceptive diaphragms in the US or send them through the mail, and anyone who wrote about them risked imprisonment for indecency. The devices were entirely...



The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom by Simon Winchester

It is now a little over four hundred years since a scattering of Westerners first began to try to learn the Chinese language. Across that long span, the number of scholars studying Chinese has grown, but their responses to the challenges of Chinese script have been generally consistent. Most have...



Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry

Memoirs are inherently wistful, but Larry McMurtry's reminiscences of his life with books -- not as a novelist but as a reader, book scout, and bookstore owner -- are especially valedictory. Nearly every page sounds a note of farewell, of stoic, weary resignation, of time running out. While...



Breath: A Novel by Tim Winton

Tim Winton, the prolific Australian author of Cloudstreet, Dirt Music, and The Riders, among nine novels, three short-story collections, six children's books, and three nonfiction books, has a genius for the ungainly comedy of family life and the isolated sadness of lovers. But he is also a writer...



Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 by J. H. Elliott

The polymath and politician Francis Bacon wrote his "Short View to Be Taken of Great Britain and Spain" in 1619. At this point, Spain laid claim to the largest, most widely dispersed, and by far the richest empire in the world, but Bacon detected frailties in the giant. Philip III, king of Spain...



My Three Fathers: And the Elegant Deceptions of My Mother, Susan Mary Alsop by William S. Patten

Two of Bill Patten's three fathers were Alfred Duff Cooper and Joseph Alsop. What memoirist could ask for more? Duff and Joe, as they were known in the international set of their day, now seem like characters from an Evelyn Waugh novel about the batty doings of the very best people. Politician...



Fire and Knowledge: Fiction and Essays by Peter Nadas

In countries where a state apparatus, by means of continuous and perceptible monitoring, threats, and reprisals, accords due respect to the power of language, it is hardly surprising that both readers and writers would take words and their uses seriously. And although it's certain, insofar as...



Sea Change: Poems by Jorie Graham

You have/no rightful way//to live. This is the apprehension hovering behind Jorie Graham's new volume of poems, Sea Change. The apprehension springs in part from restless guilt concerning the ongoing American war, undertaken in our name by an elected president and an elected Congress. Any writer ...



Beijing Coma by Ma Jian

Sixty pages or so into Ma Jian's novel Beijing Coma, the hero, Dai Wei, is troubled by the memory of a harrowing anatomy lecture that he attended as a university student. Taught by "a celebrated cardiovascular specialist," the class observed the dissection of the fresh corpse of a criminal whom the ...



Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler

The bursting of the housing bubble and the associated credit crunch has so far wiped out about $3 trillion of wealth -- nobody knows the exact amount -- caused havoc in the financial markets, and prompted hundreds of thousands of homeowners to default on their monthly mortgage payments. Some...



Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend by Richard Stoneman

Boxing: A Cultural History by Kasia Boddy

The Comanche Empire (Lamar Series in Western History) by Pekka Hamalainen

A Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling by V. S. Naipaul

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Lush Life: A Novel by Richard Price

All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

About My Life and the Kept Woman: A Memoir by John Rechy

The Reserve: A Novel by Russell Banks

His Illegal Self by Peter Carey

The Executor: A Comedy of Letters by Michael Kruger

Littlefoot: A Poem by Charles Wright

Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer by Michael A. Elliott

Lost Paradise by Cees Nooteboom

A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited about Obama and Why He Can't Win by Shelby Steele

Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee

Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China by Kang Zhengguo

Henry James: The Mature Master by Sheldon M. Novick

Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War by Michael J. Neufeld

The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good about the Good News? by Peter J. Gomes

Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin

Notebooks by Tennessee Williams

The Last Chicken in America by Ellen Litman

Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World by Paul Cartledge

The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved by Judith Freeman

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton Economic History of the Western World) by Gregory Clark

Vincent Van Gogh: Painted with Words: The Letters to Emile Bernard by Leo Jansen

The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam by Tom Bissell

Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories by Katha Pollitt

Tomorrow by Graham Swift

Nine by Andrzej Stasiuk

The Unknown Terrorist: A Novel by Richard Flanagan

Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States by Trita Parsi

God's Silence by Franz Wright

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron

The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker

Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe

The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid

The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS by Helen Epstein

Cold War at 30,000 Feet: The Anglo-American Fight for Aviation Supremacy by Jeffrey A. Engel

Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith by Philip Kitcher

At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches by Susan Sontag

When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina (Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion) by W. Lance Bennett

 

Click here to subscribe
Special offer for the New York Review of Books — Powell's shoppers save 70%!

For over 40 years, the New York Review of Books has been the place where the world's leading authors, educators, artists, and political leaders turn when they wish to engage in a spirited debate on literature, politics, art, and ideas. We invite you to join them. Subscribe today and get 10 issues of the New York Review for just $16.95 — a 70% savings off the cover price!

Click here to subscribe and save 70%!