Book Reviews and Notices : American Foreign Policy. By LAWRENCE H. CHAMBERLAIN AND RICHARD C. SNYDER. (New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc. 1948. Pp. xiv, 826. $5.00. )

• Date: 01 September 1948
• Published date: 01 September 1948
• DOI: 10.1177/106591294800100331
• Author: Robert E. Hosack
• Subject Matter: Articles

336

America

need

a

scholarly

and

scientific

examination

of

the

facts

of

society.

This

implies

sociological,

economic,

and

political

research

by

competent

scholars

which

might

produce

on

a

nation-wide

scale

that

wedding

of

soil

and

seminar

which

once

made

Wisconsin

a

great

progressive

state.

An

excellent

and

extensive

bibliography

appears

on

the

last

seven

pages.

WALTER

L.

RILEY.

University

of

Washington.

American

Foreign

Policy.

By

LAWRENCE

H.

CHAMBERLAIN

AND

RICHARD

C.

SNYDER.

(New

York:

Rinehart

&

Company,

Inc.

1948.

Pp.

xiv,

826.

$5.00. )

The

nature

of

the

contemporary

problems

in

a

period

of

transition

and

the

machinery

for

making

and

executing

the

policy

to

meet

these

problems

are

conveniently

presented

in

American

Foreign

Policy.

In

this

book

two

professors

of

government

and

politics

have

happily

combined

readings

with

their

editorial

text

as

a

foundation

for

a

general

introduction

to

the

subject.

This

work

is

divided

into

two

parts

of

equal

length,

each

of

which,

prior

to

the

changes

resulting

from

the

paper

shortage,

would

have been

published

as

a

separate

volume

of

this

size.

Part

I,

dealing

with

the

mechanism

for

the

conduct

of

foreign

policy,

begins

with

the

constitutional

provisions

and

considers

in

turn

the

respective

roles

of

the

President,

Congress,

the

Depart-

ment

of

State

and

other

executive

agencies,

political

parties

and

pressure

groups

in

formulating

or

executing

this

country’s

foreign

policy.

Part

I

closes

with

a

chapter

on

the

place

of

international

information

in

foreign

policy.

Part

II

presents

the

content

and

conditions

of

American

foreign

policy

in

the

traditional

geographic

compartments,

plus

two

final

chapters

on

eco-

nomic

and

financial

policies.

In

a

preliminary

discussion

of

the

basic

factors,

the

editors,

moreover,

offer

a

novel

analysis

of

foreign

policy

in relation

to

the

fundamental

beliefs

of

the

American

people

and

also

discuss

that

policy

in

terms

of

its

adjust-

ment

to

shifting

conditions.

The

documents,

articles,

and

excerpts

from

books

which

are

presented

in

this

collection

are

well

selected

and

are

arranged

with

such

skill

that

the

discussion

proceeds

smoothly

and

logically.

In

Part

I

the

editors

merely

provide

brief

introductory

notes,

whereas

in

Part

II

each

chapter

is

pre-

faced

by

a

rather

extensive

(up

to

sixteen

pages)

statement

of

the

back-

ground. Despite

this,

the

material

in

Part

II

is

so

organized

that

the

separate

policies

cannot

be

recognized

clearly

as

a

coherent

whole.

Possibly

this

is

not

wholly

the

editors’

fault,

but

the

use

of

cross

references

and

footnotes

would

partially

overcome

this

effect.

The

task

of

the

student,

and

of

his

instructor,

would

also

be

made

easier

if

the

bibliographical

selections

at

the

end

of

each

chapter

were

more

carefully

prepared.

The

general

reader,