Warren G. Harding by John W. DeanReview by: Walter Russell MeadForeign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 2004), pp. 163-164Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20033929 .

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Recent Books

The Choice shows these talents hard at work. Brzezinski takes readers on a tour d'horizon of U.S. foreign policy, discusses the inevitable contradictions and tensions that enmesh a democratic society that is also a global hegemon, criticizes the Bush administration, and articulates his own vision of the way forward-all in a little over 200 pages. Even those who do not accept Brzezinski's critique of the Bush administration will admire the sagacity of his views; for Democrats attempting to assemble a serious and thoughtful alter native to Bush's foreign policy, The Choice is indispensable.

American Dynasty:Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics ofDeceit in the House of Bush. BY KEVIN PHILLIPS. NewYork:

Viking, 2004, 384 pp. $25.95. Phillips' latest book is a bitter disap pointment, largely because it cannot decide whether it wants to be a philip pic against the shortcomings of George

W. Bush and his antecedents or a sweeping history of American power in the twentieth century. The result is an unsatisfying mess. The wide scope and broad range of ideas blur the single

minded focus necessary for a satisfying screed, but the larger themes can never quite emerge amid the accusation, in sinuation, and invective. Still, Phillips' central idea is interesting and important.

The twentieth century, he argues, saw a fusion of three major interests: the energy industry, Wall Street, and the defense in dustry. Four generations of Bushes have participated in and furthered the emergence of this finance-security hydrocarbon complex, and the domestic and foreign policies of the second Bush administration emerge from this back

ground. Phillips could have written a magisterial history of the age. Instead, we have a sloppy, confusing mess that his many admirers will do their best to forget.

Warren G. Harding. BY JOHN W. DEAN. New York: Times Books, 2004, 224 pp. $20.00.

In selecting John Dean, Richard Nixon's former White House counsel, to write the biography of Warren Harding, Arthur Schlesinger made an interesting and a fruitful choice. Dean turns out to be a good biographer, and his book is a serviceable introduction to the last mem ber of the Ohio presidential dynasty. Dean makes a strong case that history has done wrong by Harding, and that his ranking as one of the worst U.S. presidents reflects more political bias than substantive judgment. The Teapot

Dome and whiskey scandals were not nearly as serious as some of the scandals that have shaken Washington in recent decades (without inflicting much harm on the posthumous reputations of the presidents peripherally involved), and Harding neither participated in them nor tried to cover them up. He freed the antiwar protesters that Wilson had jailed-even pardoning Eugene Debs after an interview in the White House.

Dean also argues that historians have erred by not giving Harding more credit for the diplomacy of his secretary of state, Charles Evans Hughes. Still, that only means that he was less slothful but more foolish than currently believed. As president, Harding failed to grasp the nature of the United States' new role and to give the country and the world the leadership they needed; it is this,

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Recent Books not the financial improprieties of his cronies, that will keep the banks of the Potomac free of Harding memorials.

Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since.1882. BY ROGER DANIELS.

New York: Hill and Wang, 2004,

344 pp. $30.00. This useful study introduces readers to the tangled history of immigration policy in the United States. Such an introduction is badly needed: on the evidence of this book, much of U.S. immigration policy has been made by those who did not understand the con sequences of the policies they struggled to enact. Before i882, the country had no immigration policy: anyone who got here could stay here. But Ameri cans already living here have always felt ambivalent toward new arrivals; while recognizing that immigrants provide cheap and willing labor, they have doubted the ability of various groups to assimilate. Benjamin Franklin worried about the Germans, and later generations

worried about the Irish, the Italians, and the Jews. Historically, these fears have been expressed in terms of race; today, "culture" is the preferred term to distinguish the assimilable, useful immigrants from the purportedly dan gerous ones. Daniels sees immigration policy moving in long waves. From 188z to 1921, the doors were slowly closed. Immigration policy was tightest between the two world wars, but controls began to relax during Harry Truman's presidency. A second period of openness culminated in the amnesties of the 1980s. Now, with the percentage of foreign born residents comparable to levels

of a century ago, there may be further efforts at tightening ahead.

America's Inadvertent Empire. BY WILLIAM E. ODOM AND ROBERT

DUJARRIC. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, 304 pp. $30.00.

How durable is U.S. power? The authors of this thoughtfil, well-researched study offer mostly optimistic answers. Looking at sources of power ranging from military strength to academic institutions and scientific accomplishments, Odom and

Dujarric conclude that the current posi tion of the United States could last for decades-if not longer. Their basic argu

ment is that the United States is strong because it has a depth and breadth of liberal practices and institutions that other societies cannot match-and that because liberal institutions generally reflect long-term cultural habits and trends, they will not soon catch up. This case is a sort of synthesis between Francis Fukuyama's end of history and Samuel Huntington's clash of civilizations: liberal values lead to success, but not everyone can get there.

The most important warning the authors offer is that, because of poor leadership (they point to examples in both the Clinton and Bush administrations), the

United States could adopt bad policies that cause others to band together against its power. This claim seems a little incon sistent; surely a society as well ordered as the liberal one they describe would do a reasonably decent job of choosing national leaders. In any case, the authors leave them selves a realistic if inelegant escape hatch: Bush's unilateral, confrontational policies are dangerous and poorly conceived unless they turn out well.

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