GHW Bush Administration

The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has prompted much handwringing over the problems with prewar intelligence. Too little attention has been paid, however, to the flip slide of the picture: that the much-maligned UN-enforced sanctions regime actually worked. Contrary to what critics have said, we now know that containment helped destroy Saddam Hussein's war machine and his capacity to produce weapons.

David Halberstam's latest book describes the impossible job of the American president in the late 1990s: trying to hold together the international order while governing a complacent country with little interest in the outside world.

George Bush and Brent Scowcroft's Oval Office memoir shows how Bush's genius for friendship and gentlemanly instincts helped usher out the Cold War.

Walter LaFeber and Michael Schaller have both written stimulating diplomatic histories of Japan. Unfortunately, Japan's history is less one of outstanding statesmen than of the people they served.