For Might and Right: Cold War Defense Spending and the Remaking of American Democracy
| Author | Alexander Kirss |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020221098000 |
| Published date | 01 March 2022 |
| Date | 01 March 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
These four empirical chapters serve as the foundation for discussing the type and
extent of changepossible, a discussion thatbegins in earnest in the final empiricalchapter
on mobilization and is the focus of the conclusion. Here, the book displays a clear
commitment to praxis. This necessarily involves experimentation, iteration, and some-
times failure. It also means recognizing the specificity of the particular constraints and
opportunitiesdifferent contexts present. It should come as no surprise, then, that Newell
does not advance a singular theory of change or a roadmap for transition. Instead, he
argues for a multidimensional approach, noting that “while green transformations can be
more state-led, market-led, technology-led or citizen-led, in reality they converge,
compete and reinforce one another in different combinations across diverse contexts”
(217). The central tension that arises from this conclusion is a familiar one as it is the
persistent subject of debate and inquiry in all explicitly normative traditions: to what
extent do the incremental measures open to us today advance or forestall the radical
transformations ultimatelyrequired? Although, asone might expect, no definitiveanswer
is given, the book goes much further than most in sketching the contours of the path-
way(s) to rapid decarbonization and the tensions that arise from its pursuit.
Power Shift is an important book that deserves to be read widely for its cogent
analysis of the stakes involved in energy transition and its concrete engagement with
the questions of what should and can be done, and how to do so equitably. As Newell
points out, it is no longer just activists calling for an “energy revolution”but orga-
nizations like the IEA and The Climate Group. “The question is revolution in which
parts of the system and whose revolution is it?”(240).
Michael Brenes
For Might and Right: Cold War Defense Spending and the Remaking of American Democracy
Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2020. 272 pp. $29.95 (paperback)
ISBN: 9-781-62534-522-6
Reviewed by: Alexander Kirss (arvk717@gmail.com), George Washington University
For most of the twentieth century, and entirety of the twenty-first, the United States of
America has spent more than any other country on its military. Yale historian Michael
Brenes aims to answer two central questions about this outlay in For Might and Right:
first, why did it occur? And second, what effect did it have on the United States?
Although his answers are not particularly controversial—the United States spent so
much on its military because a shifting political coalition always believed it was in its
interest to do, albeit at the cost of partisan polarization and heavily racialized economic
inequality—Brenes’research provides a fast-paced, enjoyable introduction to a crucial
period in American economic, political, and military history. It also raises further
questions that are worth investigating by political scientists and historians alike.
Book Reviews 155
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