Rating the Presidents: Washington to Clinton
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. reports on a recent poll of scholars rating American presidents following the model of polls taken by his father, Arthur M. Schlesinger, in 1948 and 1962. Extrapolating from these poll results, he concludes that only presidents who did not stick to the middle-of-the-road but showed boldness and creativity were ranked among the "Greats" and "Near Greats."

Turkey-The Return of the Reluctant Generals?
Ben Lombardi reviews developments currently affecting Turkish politics. He compares current trends with events in Turkey that preceded the three military coups in 1960, 1971, and 1980, and suggests that intervention in that country's domestic politics by the armed forces is a distinct possibility.

Race and Social Welfare Policy: The Social Security Act of 1935
Gareth Davies and Martha Derthick criticize scholarly claims that racial bias in the U.S. Congress accounts for decisions in 1935 not to cover agricultural and domestic workers under social insurance and not to enact a standard of need and assistance in Aid to Dependent Children. They argue that weighing in those decisions were also such factors as administrative feasibility, actuarial soundness, and interstate economic rivalry.

Interbranch Rivalry and the Reagan Doctrine in Nicaragua
James M. Scott examines the complex interactions of the White House, Congress, and the bureaucracy over U.S. policy toward Nicaragua during the Reagan administration. Based on the patterns of this case, he offers some conclusions about the way that American foreign policy making is understood.

The Constitutionality of the Presidential Line-Item Veto
Robert J. Spitzer criticizes arguments that the Constitution inherently provides the president with a line-item veto.

Arms Control and the Anglo-German Naval Race before World War I: Lessons for Today?
John H. Maurer looks at the failure of Great Britain and imperial Germany to reach a naval arms control agreement before World War I. He concludes that Britain and Germany could only have reached an agreement to curtail their naval competition by first resolving the underlying political and security conflicts-- a reality that still exists for other nations and other arms control agreements.

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel P. Huntington
Reviewed by Robert Jervis

Friends or Rivals? The Insider's Account of U.S.-Japan Relations, Michael H. Armacost
Reviewed by Andrew J. Rotter

Global Competition and Industrial Growth in Taiwan and the Philippines, Chen-Tian Kuo
Reviewed by Xiangming Chen

Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev, Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov
Reviewed by Marshall D. Shulman

The Art of Bargaining, Richard Ned Lebow
Reviewed by Christopher Gelpi

The New American Voter, Warren E. Miller and J. Merrill Shanks
Reviewed by Robert Y. Shapiro

What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters, Scott Keeter and Michael X. Delli Carpini
Reviewed by Eric R. A. N. Smith

Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth, Claude S. Fischer, Michael Hout, Martin Sanchez Jankowski, Samuel R. Lucas, Ann Swidler and Kim Voss
Reviewed by Lawrence Bobo

State Autonomy or Class Dominance? Case Studies on Policy Making in America, G. William Domhoff
Reviewed by Edward W. Lehman

Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris, Richard Kluger
Reviewed by Wendy J. Schiller

The New Struggle for Democracy in Africa, John A. Wiseman
Reviewed by Robert Fatton, Jr.

Serious Money: Fundraising and Contributing in Presidential Nomination Campaigns, Clifford W. Brown, Jr., Clyde Wilcox and Lynda Powell
Reviewed by Jeffrey Milyo

Climbing the Hill: Gender Conflict in Congress, Karen Foerstel and Herbert N. Foerstel ; Christie Whitman: A Political Biography for the People, Sandy McClure
Reviewed by Roberta S. Siegel

Reversing Course: Carter's Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics, and the Failure of Reform, David Skidmore
Reviewed by Joseph Lepgold

Boomerang: Clinton's Health Security Effort and the Turn against Government in U.S. Politics, Theda Skocpol
Reviewed by Anne Lenhard Reisinger

Foreign Policy and Regionalism in the Americas, Gordon Mace and Jean-Philippe Therien, eds.
Reviewed by Robert A. Pastor

Democracy and Diplomacy: The Impact of Domestic Politics on U.S. Foreign Policy, 1789-1994, Melvin Small
Reviewed by T. Clifton Morgan

Crucible of Beliefs: Learning, Alliances, and World Wars, Dan Reiter
Reviewed by Randall L. Schweller

Carter and Arms Sales: Implementing the Carter Administration's Arms Transfer Restraint Policy, Joanna Spear
Reviewed by Stephanie G. Neuman

The Russian Army in a Time of Troubles, Pavel K. Baev
Reviewed by Laura V. Swartz

After the USSR: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent States, Anatoly M. Khazanov
Reviewed by Alfred J. Rieber

Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944-1949, Carolyn Woods Eisenberg
Reviewed by Loyd E. Lee

Roosevelt's Warrior: Harold L. Ickes and the New Deal, Jeanne Nienaber Clarke
Reviewed by James W. Davis

The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State, Barnett R. Rubin
Reviewed by Raymond Callahan

The Arab Middle East and the United States: Inter-Arab Rivalry and Superpower Diplomacy, Burton I. Kaufman ; Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East, Fred Halliday
Reviewed by Fawaz A. Gerges

Inside the Kremlin during the Yom Kippur War, Victor Israelyan
Reviewed by Carol R. Saivetz

Wars, Internal Conflicts, and Political Order: A Jewish Democracy in the Middle East, Gad Barzilai
Reviewed by Michael Barnett

Human Rights in the West Bank and Gaza: Legacy and Politics, Ilan Peleg
Reviewed by James Ron

Secret War in the Middle East: The Covert Struggle for Syria, 1949-1961, Andrew Rathmell
Reviewed by David W. Lesch

Military Rebellion in Argentina: Between Coups and Consolidation, Deborah L. Norden ; The Army and Politics in Argentina, 1962-1973: From Frondizi's Fall to the Peronist Restoration, Robert A. Potash
Reviewed by David Pion-Berlin

Authoritarianism in Latin America since Independence, Will Fowler, ed.
Reviewed by Charles L. Stansifer

Anglo-American Relations in the Twentieth Century: Of Friendship, Conflict, and the Rise and Decline of Superpowers, Alan P. Dobson
Reviewed by Roger Adelson

Hard Bargain: How FDR Twisted Churchill's Arm, Evaded the Law, and Changed the Role of the American Presidency, Robert Shogan
Reviewed by Warren F. Kimball

The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79, Ben Kiernan
Reviewed by Douglas Pike

The Politics of German Child Welfare from the Empire to the Federal Republic, Edward Ross Dickinson
Reviewed by Andrew Lees

SDP: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Social Democratic Party, Anthony King and Ivor Crewe
Reviewed by Leon D. Epstein

Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, Mary Fulbrook ; Origins of a Spontaneous Revolution: East Germany, 1989, Karl-Dieter Opp, Peter Voss and Christiane Gern
Reviewed by Melvin Croan

Gandhi's Peace Army: The Shanti Sena and Unarmed Peacekeeping, Thomas Weber
Reviewed by Dennis Dalton

Building a Democratic Political Order: Reshaping American Liberalism in the 1930s and 1940s, David Plotke
Reviewed by Edwin Amenta

What Employers Want: Job Prospects for Less-Educated Workers, Harry J. Holzer
Reviewed by Hilary Williamson Hoynes

Rethinking Abortion: Equal Choice, the Constitution, and Reproductive Politics, Mark A. Graber
Reviewed by David S. Meyer

Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century, Kevin K. Gaines
Reviewed by Taeku Lee

Towards Illiberal Democracy in Pacific Asia, Daniel Bell, David Brown, Kanishka Jayasuriya and David Martin Jones
Reviewed by Lee Feigon