Book Reviews : One-Party Government in Mali: Transition toward Control. By FRANK GREGORY SNYDER. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965. Pp. xiv, 178. $5.00.)

• Published date: 01 March 1966
• Date: 01 March 1966
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296601900159
• Subject Matter: Articles

203

when

applied

to

international

affairs.&dquo;

Statements

like

these

found

throughout

the

book

take

attention

away

from

the

factors

which

really

determined

what

happened

-

the

sway

of

battle

and

the

fortunes

of

war.

The

Russians

got

to

Central-Eastern

Europe

before

we

did,

and

our

ability

to

influence

events

there

declined.

By

the

same

token

we

kept

them

out

of

Western

Europe,

North

Africa,

Italy,

and

Japan,

which

were

taken

by

our

arms.

The

author

may

have

stronger

grounds

to

reprove

American

policy-makers

for

their

preoccupation

with

eliminating

the

balance

of

power

and,

like

Woodrow

Wilson

a

generation

earlier,

pinning

American

hopes

on

a

system

of

collective

secur-

ity.

Smith

should

have

acknowledged,

however,

that

because

of

the

efforts

toward

world

organization

we

achieved

the

establishment

of

the

United

Nations.

The

claim

to

rank

this

among

the

greatest

achievements

of

our

wartime

diplomacy

can

be

tell-

ingly

made,

but

Smith

does

not

recognize

it.

Roosevelt

could

see

more

clearly

than

his

British

and

Soviet

counterparts

the

potentially

explosive

force

of

anti-colonialism

in

the

postwar

period.

Smith

does

not

give

him

credit

for

prescience

but

chooses

to

dwell

on

our

meddling

influence

in

the

colonial

areas

of

our

British

ally.

On

the

question

of

Germany

Smith

bristles

with

some

most

serious

inferences.

Although

he

admits

it

is

a

highly

controversial

subject,

he

states

that

at

Yalta

the

President

was

a

dying

man

and

that

the

power

of

his

mind

had

declined

since

the

Teheran

meeting

fourteen

months

earlier.

He

presents

the

theory

that

the

President’s

weariness

led

to

the

postponement

of

the

issues

of

dismemberment

and

reparations

for

Germany,

which

postponement

turned

out

to

be

favorable

for

the

West.

If

the

author

had

written

a

more

lengthy

book,

he

might

have

set

forth

and

analyzed

the

data

for

these

positions.

The

author

is

more

gentle

with

President

Truman

as

he

wrestled

with

the

prob-

lem

of

including

in

the

Potsdam

Declaration

a

statement

permitting

the

retention of

the

Emperor

and

the

decision

to

drop

the

bomb.

Smith

proposes

on

the

one

hand,

&dquo;If

we

assume

a

double

‘if’ :

an

assurance

on

the

Emperor

and

the

patience

to

hold

back

on

the

bomb

while

the

Japanese

cabinet

went

through

the

final

agonies

of

debate,

it

does

seem

probable

that

Japan

would

have

surrendered

before

many

weeks

had

passed,

probably

before

the

November

1

invasion

date

set

by

the

American

mili-

tary

planners.&dquo;

Yet

he

dismisses

this

cogently

presented

probability

by

declaring

&dquo;but

there

is

little

profit

in

lingering

too

long

over

these

might-have-beens.&dquo;

The

book

has

a

useful

seven-page

&dquo;Suggestions

for

Additional

Study&dquo;

including

general

works,

special

studies,

memoirs

and

biographies,

and

documents.

Colorado

State

University

JOHN

P.

VLOYANTES

One-Party

Government

in

Mali:

Transition

toward

Control.

By

FRANK

GREGORY

SNYDER.

(New

Haven:

Yale

University

Press,

1965.

Pp.

xiv,

178.

$5.00.)

If

political

science

suffers

from

a

paucity

of

empirically

tested

or

testable

gen-

eralizations,

be

they

all-encompassing

or

&dquo;middle-range,&dquo;

it

abounds

in

case

studies

of

historically

specific

events,

movements,

and

institutions.

The

imbalance

need

not