| The Decision to Intervene - Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1920, Volume II (1958) |
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| Notes/Review |
| Some crumpling at top and bottom of spine on dust jacket. Book Condition: Very Good Book Price: US$ 8.00 Shipping Price: US$ 4.50 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the second book of a planned trilogy of Soviet-American relations from 1917-1920. The third book was never written. This volume covers the time frame of roughly March 1918 to October 1918. Both the scale and scope of this volume are greater than the first volume. There are quite a few more major characters and they move across a much more vast area. The problems of miscommunication and misunderstanding had a serious impact on Soviet-American relations that lasted (at least) until the Second World War. Kennan sums it up in one line: "never, surely, in the history of American diplomacy has so much been paid for so little." Words that may apply to current times: "The reasons for this failure of American statesmanship lay in such things as ... the congenital shallowness, philosophical and intellectual, of the approach to world problems that bubbled up from the fermentations of official Washington and the pervasive dilettantism in the execution of American policy." As the title says, the book covers the decision to intervene. We don't learn what our troops did there, other than a few bits of foreshadowing. The curious reader is left to seek out the story of the missing third volume on our own. Careful study of this book's bibliography provides some suggestions. |