Advice to War Presidents: A Remedial Course in Statecraft (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780465004836)

"War presidents" are hardly exceptional in modern American history. To a greater or lesser extent, every president since Wilson has been a War President. Each has committed our country to the pursuit of peace, yet involved us in a seemingly endless series of wars--conflicts that the American foreign policy establishment has generally made worse. The chief reason, argues Angelo Codevilla in "Advice to War Presidents," is that America's leaders have habitually imagined the world as they wished it to be rather than as it is: They acted under the assumptions that war is not a normal tool of statecraft but a curable disease, and that all the world's peoples wish to live as Americans do. As a result, our leaders have committed America to the grandest of ends while constantly subverting their own goals.

Author: Angelo M. Codevilla
ISBN-10: 0465004830
ISBN-13: 9780465004836
Publisher: Basic Books
Language: English
Published: 04/01/2009
Pages: 336
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.20w x 1.30d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/05/2009 pg. 44
Library Journal 01/15/2009 pg. 112