James Madison by Garry WillsReview by: Walter Russell MeadForeign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2002), pp. 191-192Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20033380 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 02:35

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Council on Foreign Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ForeignAffairs.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.61 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 02:35:36 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Recent Books

confines his attention mostly to the coastlands. A year in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Georgetown (along with Cambridge and Manhattan, one of the most Europeanized settlements in the country) is not yet IAmeriqueprofonde, even if it involves him in such American adventures as participating in a park cleanup and "talking politics with a neighbor named Greg." For a more complete picture, he would be advised to go deeper-Shreve port, Louisiana, maybe, or Lincoln, Ne braska. Alas, Europeans seem as unwilling as the inhabitants of Georgetown to pene trate too deeply into the American core.

The Emerging Democratic Majority. BY JOHN B. JUDIS AND RUY

TEIXEIRA. New York: Scribner's, 2002, 224 pp. $24.00.

Those worried by the unilateral doctrines in Republican foreign policy circles will be comforted by the message ofJudis and Teixeira: the Bush administration is a flash in the pan, and the Democratic Party is becoming the new natural party of American government. Combining state-by-state analyses with a look at broader demographic trends (the growing importance of minority voters, the per sistent failure of Republicans to appeal to upwardly mobile women, the widespread public suspicion of the religious right), The Emerging Democratic Majority is one of the most impressive overviews of

American politics in recent years. But the authors are surprisingly weak on foreign policy. Indeed, most of the book is written as if foreign policy had zero impact on

American politics outside of wartime. The authors acknowledge that September ii

may have given the Republicans a boost by shifting voters' attention, at least tem

porarily, away from the economic and cultural issues that favor Democrats and toward security issues that make Repub licans look more attractive. Yet they fail to note that voter uneasiness over Bill

Clinton's trade policy and over Al Gore's perceived eagerness to support humani tarian interventions contributed materially to Bush's narrow victory in 2000, in which the domestic issues heavily favored the

Democratic incumbent. The case for a new Democratic majority may not be as clear as the authors (both acknowledged partisans) might wish, but anyone hoping to predict the course of American politics and foreign policy will find this book a helpful guide.

James Madison. BY GARRY WILLS. New York: Henry Holt, 2002,184 pp. $20.00.

The American Presidents, a valuable series under the general editorship of

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., has produced yet another excellent short biography.

Madison, whose administration blundered into the dismal War of 1812, had to flee the White House as a British raiding party burned it and much of Washington to the ground. His administration has long been considered a disappointment, and his reputation has depended instead on his brilliant contributions to the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.

Wills adds some luster to this reputation, assigning to Madison some credit (usually given Jefferson) as the great defender of religious liberty among the founders.

He also analyzes the causes of Madison's weaknesses as president, attempts to assess Madison's place in American history, and provides what may well be the clearest account ever produced of the politics and strategy of the War of 1812. Summing up

F O R E I G N AF FA I R S November/December2002 [191]

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.61 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 02:35:36 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Recent Books

the record, Wills writes, "Madison did more [for his country] than most, and did some things better than any. That is quite enough." High praise-which can also be applied to Wills as a biographer.

Reagan's War: The Epic Story offHis Forty Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism. BY PETER SCHWEIZER.

New York: Doubleday, 2002, 288 pp. $26.oo.

Schweizer argues that Ronald Reagan came into the White House determined to implement revolutionary changes in

American Cold War policy-a shift, as conservatives always had sought, that

would move beyond containment to the defeat of the Soviet superpower. Schweizer does a masterful job at tracing the con nections between Reagan's policies as president and the beliefs, values, and proposals that marked his 40-year career in the public eye. From his anticommunist struggles in Hollywood to his political career in Sacramento and Washington, Reagan continually returned to a handful of themes and ideas. Schweizer makes a strong case that as president, Reagan consistently acted to implement this anticommunist agenda, overruling the qualms of cautious advisers and persisting unswervingly, despite worldwide criticism and a lack of domestic political support.

After Schweizer, even inveterate Reagan haters will have to abandon the picture of an amiable dunce drifting passively while a handftil of advisers set the agenda.

What remains open to debate is how important Reagan's foreign policy was to the fall of the Soviet Union. Did Reagan's

wholehearted embrace of an arms race force the Soviet leadership to acknowledge their system's bankruptcy and thus embark

on reform? Or was the decay of the Soviet system so far advanced that U.S. policy had only limited effects on its internal politics? How much credit goes to 40 years of containment versus 8 years of rollback? Schweizer does not answer these questions definitively, but his book is likely to have a lasting influence on the historiography of the Reagan years.

Western Europe STANLEY HOFFMANN

Churchill: Visionary. Statesman. Historian. BY JOHN LUKACS. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2002, 200 pp. $21.95. Winston Churchill. BY JOHN KEEGAN.

New York: Viking, 2002,192 pp. $21.95. This is a good year for admirers of Win ston Churchill. Lukacs, a lucid but not uncritical worshiper, has written about him for many years. Keegan, the great military historian, has come out with a brief biography that neglects no aspect of his life. Like many biographers of Churchill, they have both fallen under the spell of his eloquence, his character, and his often visionary leadership. Lukacs examines Churchill's relations with Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower, as well as his feelings toward European integration. He also deals at length with Churchill's critics, especially recent ones such as John Charmley and

Niall Ferguson. Looking at Churchill as a historian, he covers his funeral in a chapter brimming over with sentiment. This superb little book is a pleasure for the reader. The mix of critical intelligence, sure appreciation of what Churchill did to stop the dark evil of Adolf Hitler,

[192] FOREIGN AFFAIRS- Volume8izNo.6

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.61 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 02:35:36 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions