American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, Future (5th Edition)

Rating:
Summary: American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, Future
Review: Hastedt's book is a well worded and actually rather objective perusal of American foreign policy from its root in the 18th century to President Clinton's decisions to go into Bosnia. I read this book towards the beginning of this year and was surprised about how up to date it was. The writing is very easy to follow and the book follows a very strong methodological format -- beiniing with the theoretical underpinnings of US foreign policy, then on to its early history, then to models of decisionmaking. This section as well is quite good -- it shows the decisionmaking models in the context of the Cuban Millsile crisis, Grenada, and also some about Bush and Desrt Storm/Desert Shield. The section on the Cuban Missile Crisis itself is somewhat misleading, but Halstedt's greatest strength is his assesments of the future of American international engagement.