Rise to Globalism, by Stephen Ambrose, is an enlightened work on the development of American foreign policy from World War II through the Reagan administration. It is an excellent one volume history, basic, but full of fact, that explains the trends in foreign policy that led America from its isolationist attitude of the first half of the nineteenth century to its position of global power and imminence today. The basic causes of the world's major problems today (from the American viewpoint), communism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and third-world development, are traced from World War II and explained as they pertain to America's foreign policies and overseas activities. This volume lays the ground work in the reader's mind to understanding modern American foreign policy.

The book begins by explaining America's involvement in World War II. This important though seemingly unconnected event would shape American foreign policy for the remainder of the century. After the war, the Eastern European states, liberated by Russia, were incorporated into satellite states of Russia, which then became the Soviet Union. The governments formed in these countries after the war were, naturall

Ambrose does an excellent job of showing how, at every stage of the cold war, the entire arms race, and the divided European continent situation, could have been avoided. He shows how each side could have compromised and avoided the financial and economic disaster which accompanied the arms race. However, neither the United States nor the U.S.S.R. was willing to compromise on relatively minor matters, much less on the big questions that still remained unanswered. When the United States would make a move to compromise, such as the partitioning of Berlin, the U.S.S.R. would respond with an impossible set of demands. When the U.S.S.R. tried to compromise, the U.S. would try to seize control of the situation and would create unreasonable stipulations on the proposed agreements. Inevitably, no meaningful agreements were ever reached. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Reagan each had opportunities to attempt to end the cold war, but did not. In the few instances that were seized, the attempts were bungled or the participants were unwilling to accept an equal peace. Unfortunately, the resolution of the situation came after the completion of the book. The U.S.S.R. fell in 1989 and communism was replaced by some degree of democracy throughout most of Europe.

y, communist. In Western Europe, all former satellite nations had been liberated by the United States and Great Britain, which then consequently set up democratic governments. This split of Europe, into east and west, set the stage for the cold war.

Henry Kissinger, and later President Jimmy Carter, acted in accordance with America's best interests to gain a peace agreement. Although little was done to resolve this conflict, they landed several treaties, which ended most of the open warfare and provided for many of the issues that concerned each side. Ambrose does an excellent job of showing the impact of these accomplishments on the United States. Kissinger got the oil embargo lifted and Carter negotiated a treaty to end Arab-Israeli hostilities. Ambrose fit this into America's continuing foreign policy so well that the reader does not realize until afterward that this conflict set the tone for America in dealing with the question of developing nations.

Ambrose, in simple and eloquent terms, showed the uncompromising position of each side and the various points of disagreement. The Israelis, after having fought to defend and even expand their ancient homeland, were unwilling to give up anything they had gained or to give the Palestinians a homeland of their own if it was to be created out of Israeli soil. The Arabs, for the most part, were calling for the abolition of the newly formed country, or at least the return of th

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