Stefan Halper Books & Reviews

The Cowboy Patriot

In retrospect, the film Green Berets serves rather neatly, in conjunction with reviews in the New York Times and other high-toned publications, to illustrate the period's sharp split between elite and mass opinion on the Vietnam War.

The Broken Tradition

In the ongoing argument between foreign policy realists andidealists, the just-war tradition of moral reasoning about the use offorce has played a crucial mediating role for centuries.

Through the Garbage Can, Darkly, Review of David Williams's Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science

This is a work of criticism ranging over the more fashionable social sciences and humanities, assessing and mostly rejecting them as unsuitable for elucidating the Japanese political system and berating their exponents for ignoring that system in

Road Hogs, Review of Joshua Muravchik's The Imperative of American Leadership

Two of the books reviewed here describe how Joshua Muravchik and the late Eric Nordlinger read the post-Soviet map and would have us travel upon it. Both recommend sharp turns at high speeds. The third contains the counsel of Peter Rodman, a man l

Decision Time: Britain and Europe, Review of Donald Prater's Thomas Mann: A Life

Review of Donald Prater's Thomas Mann: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Best of Buddies; Review of Anatoly Dobrynin's In Confidence

Washington has lived by leaks and rumors for a very long time, but until the collapse of communism there was one person in town with whom it was always safe to let your hair down.

The Limits of Trust

Although the syllogism conveys the essence of Fukuyama's argument, it does so at the cost of neglecting the book's broad sweep, sharp insights, and wide-ranging scholarship.

Look, No Tocqueville

Michael Lind's first book is the "first manifesto" of a "real, not merely metaphorical revolution in politics and society" leading to a new America to be known as Trans-America.

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May 26, 2012