Review: The Accidental American
| Published date | 01 December 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000433 |
| Date | 01 December 2005 |
| Author | Dominic Sandbrook |
| Subject Matter | Review |
| Reviews |
| 1190 | International Journal | Autumn 2005 |
this is sound advice, the severity of the inter-allied crisis over Iraq, which
turned on these very norms, suggests that it is easier said than done.
European and North American governments have been trying to work out
new norms of intervention since the end of the Cold War. The increased
emphasis on neoconservatism in Bush’s second administration and
Europe’s internal debate over ratifying a constitution do not bode well for
sorting them out anytime soon. If agreement cannot be reached on norms of
legitimate intervention, repetitive security crises could further erode the tra-
ditional security community even if allies agree on common ends. If this is
so, Iraq may indeed have been symptomatic of a deeper rupture.
As befits a contemporary history,the book is aimed at a general audience
and adopts a journalistic tone. The authors eschew footnotes in favour of an
awkward citation style: references are provided at the end, accompanied by
page number and a sentence fragment from the text. This makes for a clean
and easy-to-read text, but will frustrate scholars, as will the lack of a general
bibliography. Nonetheless,
Allies at War
will be useful to those looking for a
solid early narrative and a fair and thoughtful analysis of the most recent
transatlantic crisis.
Veronica M. Kitchen/Brown University
THE ACCIDENTAL AMERICAN
TonyBlair and the Presidency
James Naughtie
New York: PublicAffairs,2004. xx, 250pp, $36.95 cloth (ISBN 1-58648-257-2)
For many observers, one of the most puzzling things about the American-led
invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003 was the extremely close relationship
between its two principal advocates: George W. Bush, the president of the
United States and a right-wing Republican from Texas; and Tony Blair, the
British prime minister and the leader of a Labour Party still nominally
attached to its socialist traditions. In
The Accidental American
, the British
journalist and broadcaster James Naughtie tries to explain to American read-
ers precisely why Blair and Bush ended up as close allies, what the conse-
quences were for the two men (and the world), and what this all tells us about
Anglo-American politics and the so-called special relationship in the early
21st century.
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