Paul Johnson

In his popular history of U.S. foreign policy, David Fromkin treats American isolationism between the two world wars as the norm, despite evidence to the contrary.

Europeans were troubled by the setbacks of four successive presidents from Johnson to Carter, and thus Reagan's election was greeted with a sense of relief. Europeans were, furthermore, impressed by Reagan's ideas and his revitalizing of the US economy. One wonders how, in as august a journal as Foreign Affairs, political posturing manages to pass itself off as analysis. To discuss 'European attitudes' as if they were somehow homogeneous, even within a narrow band of national political elites, is hardly convincing. Moreover, some of the generalizations about Reagan's 'popularity' in Europe are not merely not supported by evidence, but also seem plainly unsupportable; it would be at least as plausible to suggest that the Reagan Doctrine, as well as the President's personal style, fragmented European attitudes to US foreign policy.