?The authors' central argument is that a common pattern runs through American foreign policy toward the Third World. They use the three failure' cases of Vietnam, Iran, and Nicaragua to trace the similarities in motivations, objectives, and consequences of American policy. Their presentation is one of the more forcefully argued yet still empirically based critiques that this reviewer has seen. ... The book concludes with an interesting prescriptive chapter in which the authors propose a globalist-humanist alternative.' This work is provocative reading for advanced undergraduates. The extensive footnoting of the cases and the bibliographic essays, as well as the challenging viewpoint, make it a valuable acquisition for academic libraries.?-Choice