American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932-1940

At various times during the thirties Mr. Beard gave voice to the opinion that the United States enjoyed a wide margin of choice in determining whether or not it would become involved in armed conflicts that broke out elsewhere in the world. Notable expositions of this optimistic point of view were his "The Devil Theory of War" (1936) and "Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels" (1939). The present volume is a little more circumspect, but inevitably leaves the impression that Mr. Beard thinks he was right all along and that President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull were wrong.