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Title: Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy by Michael H. Hunt ISBN: 0-300-04369-4 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: August, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (4 reviews)

Rating: 2
Summary: not what it's cracked up to be
Comment: This book has gotten a lot of attention for Michael Hunt, and I'm not sure rightly so. He postulates a little more and makes more generalizations than I would be comfortable with in a book of this nature, somewhere between history and political science but leaning more toward the latter. If much of the acclaim this book received was because of its rather unique approach, then that's one thing; if it is because of what it actually says then I just don't see it. I was more impressed with Hunt's book on Vietnam entitled Lyndon Johnson's War.

Rating: 4
Summary: A valuable study of the roots of American diplomacy
Comment: Many historians of diplomacy refer to some inchoate set of common principles and ideas that seems to lie behind all the twists and turns of American 20th-century foreign policy; Hunt actually tries to determine what that shared ideology was. He describes three basic components of this shared ideology: 1) America's vision of national greatness, 2) the American propensity to view the world's population in a hierarchy of race (and later culture as its substitute), and 3) America's growing disappointment and horror at failed revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries. He makes a sound, logical argument, and this book holds an importance place in its field. Certainly, Americans have always believed (and rightly so, in my opinion) that theirs is the greatest political system on earth. Indisputably, Americans have tended to assign characteristics to peoples on the basis of race (from blacks to eastern Europeans to Asians). I can't buy as strongly into the effects of failed revolutions--surely, the French Revolution shocked and displeased Americans who expected it to be a revolution in the American vein and just the first in a series of changes that would bring peace and freedom to all peoples. The Bolshevik Revolution also affected Americans' views of the world significantly, but I think Hunt overexaggerates the fears generated at home by Third World revolutions abroad. As Hunt would be the first to admit, ideology alone cannot explain foreign policy, and I find that his arguments do not explain to my satisfaction the disparity between Jeffersonian/Wilsonian and Federalist/FDR/LBJ thinkers. Overall, though, I found this book noble in its intentions and quite utilitarian in covering a neglected area in the field of foreign policy.

Then I read the last chapter. After putting forth his arguments, Hunt feels compelled to proscribe a new, more effective foreign policy for the United States. The fact that this exceeds the purview of an historian is beyond the point. His suggestions for changing the ideological notions of American diplomacy strike me as dangerously isolationist (despite his assertion to the contrary), exceedingly liberal, and naïve. He basically argues that America should get out of the business of imperialism, stop worrying about what other countries are doing, and devote itself to creating social and political equality at home. The Cold War had not ended when this book was written, but his suggestion was that we basically let Communism determine its own future while we implement socialism at home. Hunt must have been terribly disappointed to see Ronald Reagan win the Cold War so soon after this book's publication because that victory invalidates many of his recommendations. Hunt's main contention is that America cannot simultaneously maintain liberty at home while working to spread freedom abroad--while I think he is completely wrong about this, the subject is being hotly debated in the context of the war on terrorism and will surely be debated for all time.

I do recommend this book. I disagree with his conclusions, but his points are presented clearly, and his insights into history are invaluable. I should also mention that he ends the book with a chapter discussing relevant books in the field of ideology and foreign policy--although his references seem weighted toward revisionist/leftist scholars, it is a very useful introduction to further readings in the important and always hotly debated field of American diplomacy.

Rating: 5
Summary: Original, important analysis -- a must-read.
Comment: This is that rare combination of a serious intellectual effort for scholars and a highly-readable work that should satisfy a broader audience. Michael Hunt trained at Yale, and teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It's simply a remarkable book. I've used it teaching High School students, college and graduate school students, and adults wishing to broaden their understanding of the complex motivations that underpin foreign policy.