Dictatorships and Double Standards: Rationalism and Reason in Politics

Ambassador Kirkpatrick's political philosophy on both foreign and domestic affairs, set forth in these articles written over the past few years, takes on added interest because of her present official position, especially the Commentary article (from which the title of the book is taken) which was supposed to have won for her the post on the East River. She wages a shrill but not unconvincing campaign against the Carter Administration and its predecessors, but her arguments for hard-headed realism in defense of the national interest in the struggle against communism raise the old question of whether the facts of international life can be cut to fit the ideology of the day.