During the last half century we may have witnessed the zenith of American power. America's economic dominance and imperial reach have been impressive to watch but they cannot last. Fierce competition from other countries, indebtedness, lack of competitiveness, overextension and problems of raw materials will weaken the USA. They will certainly undermine its relative power. Another factor is the incalculable effect of climate change. On top of that, recent wars have shown us the limits of conventional (and nuclear) armies when they are up against a determined guerrilla force with an ideology every bit as gripping as America's own. Covert operations are no substitute. The CIA‐funded right‐wing coup is a thing of the past. Having said that, the decline of American power will not be precipitous. It will fade slowly with a long half‐life. So it may be timely at this point to attempt an overview of US foreign relations.
The word “research” in Professor Pauly's title is important – in two senses. First, the jacket tells us that the book is “a state‐of‐the‐art review of current research”. This is true to some degree, although I feel that the findings could have been better presented. Second, the book is useful methodologically: it offers a variety of perspectives so that scholars in this field can get their bearings. It is a research tool, at least in part. The sixteen chapters vary in tone. Some of them are straight‐forwardly empirical: three of the chapters are chronological surveys of US foreign policy and a further five are regional studies. They look to me as if they are based on the regional desks of the US State Department: Europe, Latin America, Africa, etc. Some other chapters are thematic and yet others are theoretical.
A good example of the theoretical approach is Bohdan Sawycky's piece on International Relations Theory (chapter 4). Sawycky contrasts two viewpoints. First, realism and neo‐realism is based on the primacy of states in international relations. Competition between states for pre‐eminence is seen as fundamental and conflict is inevitable. A second view is Liberal theory. This states that a wide variety of groups and bodies have a role in international relations, states simply being primus inter pares. Furthermore, interdependence and co‐operation are as important as rivalry in the development of those relations. Although these perspectives are theoretically discrete, no account of international relations and foreign policy is complete without both of them.
A total of 13 different authors have been pressed into service for this book, about half of them Professor Pauly's colleagues from his home base at the University of Southern Mississippi. The rest are mostly from other academic institutions in the USA. As for its subject identity, the Companion is not a work of history – the list of authors includes just one historian. The contributors have been recruited from political science and from international studies, a multi‐disciplinary field which draws on many subjects.
Although it is not evident from the title, the bias of these chapters is heavily towards the post‐war world. Most of them cut in with the cold war and go up to present day issues like globalisation and the so‐called “War on Terror”. But a few chapters contain sections on earlier times: Robert Pauly's first chapter America's Emergence as Global Power gives us a sketch of the whole of US foreign policy from the early republic up to 1945; some of the regional chapters (there are five) also refer to earlier periods. Russell Ramsey's chapter on Latin America is particularly notable in this regard. He gives us a straight chronological survey of the US Latin American policy starting in 1492! But his piece is interesting in another way. It is a connected narrative written in plain English and without jargon; it is not encumbered by theory or conceptual analysis. It is good to tell that Dr Ramsey is the book's only historian. Other writers are not as successful at avoiding jargon: one author has a section headed “Sub‐conventional Proxies to fight US Battles by Exploiting Differences (Valence)”. This title does not exactly make you want to devour his every word. However, Ramsey's narrative‐historical approach is untypical. Readers who want a detailed blow‐by‐blow account of (say) how the cold war began or the international relations of the Vietnam War should not come here. There are plenty of conventional political histories for that – works by Thomas Bailey, Robert Ferrell, Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley and so on; it is a long list. This is a book for orientation and it uses certain key concepts as markers: realism, liberalism, globalisation, containment, nation‐building, and so on.
If you had to be critical of the Companion, you would ask questions about what kind of book this is and whether it does its job. First, does this book serve its designated audience of “scholars and students … historians, political scientists … members of the general public”? (book jacket). Ashgate want their book to sell, of course, so in the publisher's blurb they target the widest possible audience; but maybe the audience is too wide. Let me explain. Naturally, in a modest book like this, no one topic receives extensive treatment. For example, students of America's relationship with Europe have to content themselves with brief references in the overview chapters and Tom Lansford's 15‐page section, Europe. Since Lansford starts with the American colonies and ends with Barack Obama, he has to rattle quickly through 200 years of international relations. This cursory treatment is evident in other topics too. But it makes one wonder which part of the intended readership is being served. If it is for the specialist, these short “taster” sections are hardly adequate; if it is for students and general readers, the theory is unlikely to be useful – they would skip it.
Second, where is the “current research” incorporated? Each chapter gives us a tight, argumentative text keyed to a profuse body of footnotes. But for my taste, the way in which the current research has been presented was not quite explicit enough, perhaps too integrated into the main body of the text. I would have preferred the discussion of recent work to be more “up‐front”.
Putting these two points together, I am left feeling unsure where this “Research Companion” stands. The editor had two routes to choose from. First: he might have stuck strictly to his remit of “current research”. This would have meant cutting the introductory chapters, and turning each of the others into a proper critical review of current work, discussing the recent contributions in a more explicit fashion. Some of the chapters might have been on perspectives, others more substantive. For this approach to work, the authors would have to assume a good basic knowledge of the field to begin with. It then becomes a true specialist's book. The alternative would be a dozen or more narrative accounts of America's foreign relations with various regions of the world and at various times, taking new work fully into account. Each chapter would be concrete, clear in purpose, accessible to all. These are both acceptable modes of approach, but the present book tries to give us a bit of each and, as a result, probably pleases everybody a little but nobody very much.
A good bibliography is important in this sort of book. It comes in two forms here. The chapters are replete with footnotes citing books, articles and websites; then at the end there is a plain list of books. This is quite adequate as further reading for specialist scholars. The Ashgate Research Companion to US Foreign Policy is a stout volume in a large octavo format. It is very well made and nicely printed on paper that will last. The book is sewn. It also comes as an e‐book.
