Customer Reviews
Revision of Americas history and foreign policy - By: Lennart Torstensson, 23 May 2007 
A very interesting book written by the former Presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan. He advocates a policy of non-intervention & gives numerous examples on how American intervention previously has brought America into war over issues that are not vital to American interests.
Americas history as we know it, is rewritten to a large extent by Buchanan. He destroys the myth of American isolationism during the nineteenths century.
"The nineteenth century witnessed a quadrupling of Americas territory & its emergence as a world power. To calll the foreign policy that produced this result "isolationist" is absurd. Americans were willing to go to war with the greatest powers in Europe, but only for American interests. They had no wish to take sides in European wars in which America had no stakes."
He honors people in Americas history that has acted to preserve peace, which is rather odd among historicians. When "great" presidents are mentioned & rated it is often the wartime leaders who are of interests, but Buchanan does public honor to less known figures such as John Adams who settled a dispute with France 1800 & thereby prevented a war.
Another interesting episode he describes (and I wonder if this is well know even in America today) during the election campaign 1916. The German sinking of "Lusitania" was fresh in mind & Roosevelt & other hawks wished to use it as casus belli to join the war. During Wilsons renomination convention in St Louis, keynoter Martin Glynn brought down wild applause by giving example after example on how Americans presidents previously had resolved similar or worse crisis & violations of American rights & honor.
"When Grant was President during the war between Spain & the Spanish West Indies, a Spanish gunboat seized the vessel "Virginius", flying the American flag, & a Spanish commandant in cold blood shot the captain of the "Virginius", thirty-six of the crew & sixteen passengers. But we did not go to war. Grant settled our troubles by negotiation just as the President of the United States is trying to do today"
One organisation that that he honors above alll is the America First Committee, that acted to prevent USA from entering WWII. This organisation & its leaders are covered & honored in great depth.
Further he argues that the national interests should always come first, even if it collides with gross human rights violations or even genocide. He gives examples on how other famous statesmen like Bismarck & Disraeli decided not to intervene in the Turkish oppresion & massacres of Bulgarians & Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
Finallly he gives examples that the current US-foreign policy has been hijacked by immigrants of other countries. The policy of the USA is not decided on how to best suit American interests but rather how to conduct a policy which will make certain groups of immigrants vote in the next election.
He is a strong advocate of non-intervention & temporary allliances to resolve crisis. When the cold war is over he argues that it is time for the United States to disengage from NATO & bring alll overseas troops back home.
A truly interesting & very different book, certainly worth reading by anyone interested in America.
Should be required reading. - By: , 30 Aug 1999 Pat has hit another home run--this book should be required reading at Yale & Harvard, whose grads have been mishandling American Foreign Policy for the last nearly a century.
I hope this is a runaway bestseller!
