Review: United States: Acheson
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
| Author | Robert Bothwell |
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209805300430 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
tion
to
confront
the
Persian
Gulf
ACHESON
crisis
of
1990-1.
No
less
a
feat
was
The
secretary
of
state
who
created
holding
the
coalition
together
over
the
American world
a
six-month period
as
the
punitive
James
Chace
action
agains
Iraq
escalated
from
New
York:
Simon &
Schuster,
1998,
economic
sanctions
to
blockade
to
512
pp,
US$30
all-out
war.
For
this
was
no
ordinary
coalition
made
up
of
similar
or
like-
minded
countries.
On
the contrary,
Anyone
brave
enough
to
it
comprised
forty
highly disparate
.Ekattempt
this
most
interesting
states
drawn from
five
continents,
of
American
secretaries
of
state
And the
contribution
made
by
the
faces
multiple
handicaps:
a
career
allies
of
the
United
States,
new
and
punctuated
by
wars,
crises
and
old,
was
substantial:
245,000
troops
alliances,
and
the
complexities
they
and
70
billion
dollars.
entail;
a
plethora
of
interpretations,
This book
endeavours
to
explain
including
a
number
of
earlier
why
so
many
countries
were
pre- biographies;
and,
not
least,
Ache-
pared to
contribute
so
much
to
the
son
himself,
who
in
his
lifetime
prosecution
of
Desert
Shield
and
crafted
a
number
of
elegant
books
Desert Storm.
While
the
theoreti-
that
described
his
life
and times
cal
framework imposed
on
the
from
childhood
to old
age.
study
by
the editors
is
often
unnec-
Acheson
was,
of
course,
an
Amer-
essarily
convoluted
and
intrusive,
ican
patriot and
an American
char-
many
individual
case
studies
are
acter,
as
Chace's
title
implies,
but
he
rich
in
research
data
and
perceptive
is
a
type
not
unfamiliar
to
Canadi-
policy
analysis.
ans;
and
he
was,
of
course,
of
Cana-
These
case
studies
deal
with
the
dian
ancestry.
Indeed
had
he
been
political,
military
and/or
financial
born
a
few
years
earlier
this
might
contributions
of
Britain,
France,
have
been
a
Canadian
story
about
a
Germany,
Japan,
the
Soviet
Union,
Canadian
character,
born
into
a
Egypt,
Syria,
and
Turkey.
There
is
late-Victorian
Canadian (and
Angli-
also
an
interesting
chapter
by
can)
parsonage.
Andrew
Cooper and
Kim
Nossal
on
In
culture
and formation
Ache-
the
involvement
of
Canada,
Aus-
son
is
hardly
as
typically
American
tralia,
and
the Nordic
countries,
as
Chace
argues
even
though
the
empire
he
was
called
on
to
serve
UNITED
STATES
was
not
the
British
of
his family
by
Robert
Bothwell heritage
but
the
American.
To
its
University
of
Toronto
service
he
brought
notable qualities
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Autumn
1998
803
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