Mandelbaum, Michael 1946–

PERSONAL:

Born September 23, 1946, in Oakland, CA; son of David G. (a professor) and Ruth W. (an educator) Mandelbaum; married Anne Hebald (a writer), December 19, 1976. Education: Yale University, B.A., 1968; King's College, Cambridge, M.A., 1970; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1974. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 1740 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036-1984.

CAREER:

Writer, educator. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, assistant professor, 1974-78, associate professor of government, beginning 1978; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, currently Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy and director of Foreign Policy. Director of the project on East-West relations for the Council on Foreign Relations; advisor to President Clinton during the 1992 presidential campaign. Faculty member, Columbia University and U.S. Naval Academy.

WRITINGS:

(With David C. Gompert, Richard L. Garwin, and John H. Barton) Nuclear Weapons and World Politics: Alternatives for the Future, McGraw (New York, NY), 1977.

The Role of Nuclear Weapons in the 1980s (sound recording), National Public Radio (Washington, DC), 1978.

The Nuclear Question: The United States and Nuclear Weapons, 1946-1976, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1979.

The Nuclear Revolution: International Politics before and after Hiroshima, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1981.

The Nuclear Future, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1983.

(With Strobe Talbott) Reagan and Gorbechev, Vintage Books (New York, NY), 1987.

The Fate of Nations: The Search for National Security in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1988.

(With Seweryn Bialer) The Global Rivals, Knopf (New York, NY), 1988.

(Editor, with Seweryn Bialer) Gorbachev's Russia and American Foreign Policy, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1988.

(Editor) America's Defense, Holmes & Meier (New York, NY), 1989.

(Editor) The Other Side of the Table: The Soviet Approach to Arms Control, Council on Foreign Relations Press (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor) The Rise of Nations in the Soviet Union: American Foreign Policy and the Disintegration of the U.S.S.R., Council on Foreign Relations Press (New York, NY), 1991.

(Editor, with Shafiqul Islam) Marking Markets: Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Post-Soviet States, Council on Foreign Relations Press (New York, NY), 1993.

(Editor) Central Asia and the World: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, Council on Foreign Relations Press (New York, NY), 1994.

(Editor) The Strategic Quadrangle: Russia, China, Japan, and the United States in East Asia, Council on Foreign Relations Press (New York, NY), 1995.

The Dawn of Peace in Europe, foreword by Richard C. Leone, Twentieth Century Fund Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor) Postcommunism: Four Perspectives, Council on Foreign Relations (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor, with Ethan B. Kapstein) Sustaining the Transition: The Social Safety Net in Postcommunist Europe, Council on Foreign Relations (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor) The New Russian Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor) The New European Diasporas: National Minority and Conflict in Eastern Europe, Council on Foreign Relations Press (New York, NY), 2000.

The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets in the Twenty-first Century, Public Affairs (New York, NY), 2002.

The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball, and What They See When They Do, Public Affairs (New York, NY), 2004.

The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century, Public Affairs (New York, NY), 2005.

Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government, Public Affairs (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Michael Mandelbaum has penned and edited many books in the field of political science. His first volumes frequently dealt with the issue of nuclear weapons and the Cold War. After the fall of the former Soviet Union, however, his focus shifted to the changes wrought on Europe and the rest of the world in its wake. Several of Mandelbaum's books have been published by the Council on Foreign Relations Press, including The Rise of Nations in the Soviet Union: American Foreign Policy and the Disintegration of the U.S.S.R., Central Asia and the World: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, The Strategic Quadrangle: Russia, China, Japan, and the United States in East Asia, and Postcommunism: Four Perspectives. The author has also had a lengthy and distinguished career as a professor of government at Harvard University, and of foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University.

In The Fate of Nations: The Search for National Security in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Mandelbaum goes against what Stephen M. Walt described in the New Republic as "the common tendency to explain foreign policy from the ‘inside out.’ In this view, a state's behavior flows from its domestic characteristics or its leaders' preferences and personalities." As Walt went on to explain, the author instead "focuses on the constraints that the international system imposes on its members." The reviewer praised The Fate of Nations as "gracefully written," and concluded that "the ‘outside in’ approach reminds us that statesmen's choices are not infinite, that the need for security places limits on what is possible."

In 1991 Mandelbaum edited The Rise of Nations in the Soviet Union. He also contributed an essay to the volume, as did five other experts. According to Foreign Affairs contributor Robert V. Legvold, several of the essays demonstrate "a deep understanding of the national issue in the Soviet Union." A few years later, Mandelbaum edited The Strategic Quadrangle. As the subtitle implies, this book focuses on the relationships between the major nations of the Pacific rim. Europe-Asia Studies writer David Kerr explained that The Strategic Quadrangle "stands apart from the proliferating literature on what is becoming a cliché before it has even arrived—‘the Pacific century’—and places the future politics and economics of East Asia firmly within the context of the interrelationship between the major powers." Similarly, Foreign Affairs writer Donald Zagoria praised the individual essays of the volume, saying that they are "of uniformly high quality."

Mandelbaum's The Dawn of Peace in Europe appeared in 1996 under the auspices of the Twentieth Century Fund Press. Here he makes the case for maintaining the status quo as far as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is concerned. He argues that profoundly enlarging NATO by admitting nations that formerly formed part of the Soviet Union will needlessly threaten and provoke Russia. Though Commentary reviewer Alvin H. Bernstein did not entirely agree with Mandelbaum's analysis in The Dawn of Peace in Europe, he noted that its author puts forth "an impressive set of arguments" and "possesses a formidable intellect and is capable of writing pellucid prose." Similarly, Jeffrey Gedmin, in the National Interest, remarked that "Mandelbaum is right to contend that any security arrangement that fails to take account of Russian interests in Eastern Europe would be reckless and shortsighted."

Mandelbaum published The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets in the Twenty-first Century in 2002. Here Mandelbaum discusses the spread of the ideals U.S. President Woodrow Wilson promoted at the Paris peace conference that followed World War I. A Publishers Weekly reviewer predicted that "policy enthusiasts will read Mandelbaum's astute and exceptionally well-written analysis with great interest," while a Kirkus Reviews critic concluded that, "much to his credit, Mandelbaum recognizes these three principles as ideals to strive for and not as faits accomplis."

From politics, Mandelbaum turns to athletics in his 2004 work, The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball, and What They See When They Do. This work, as Curled Up with a Good Book contributor Lydia R. Rome noted, "lands somewhere in between a classic sports text—filled with stats, quotes, and stories—and a cool-handed analysis of a cultural phenomenon." Here Mandelbaum attempts to explain America's love affair with sports. In doing so, he compares American attitudes to those of other nationalities, noting, for example, that while a tie game is allowed in soccer, such neutral endings are not allowed in any typically American sporting event. Sports, for Mandelbaum, are wrapped up in the very nature of the American identity. Reviewing The Meaning of Sports in the New York Times, Pete Hamill concluded: "Mr. Mandelbaum's book can help explain America to Americans, but it is also a subtle extension of his own expertise in foreign policy. It can help explain the United States to the rest of the often-baffled world."

In The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century, Mandelbaum contends, as an Economist reviewer put it, "that the country that stands most squarely behind those aspirations [for peace, democracy, and free markets], the United States, also acts as a sort of surrogate government for the globe—and that we would all be a lot worse off if it didn't." Such has been the case since the end of World War II, and Mandelbaum believes that it would be a mistake for the United States to become more isolationist as a result of the backlash to the Iraq War or to the added expenses that will be incurred by the country when the baby boomers retire in vast numbers. G. John Ikenberry, writing in Foreign Affairs, thought that Mandelbaum's book reminds us "that the enlightened exercise of U.S. power has helped create a secure and prosperous global system." Ikenberry also felt the book to be "insightful in tracing decades of U.S. leadership." Less positive was the evaluation of a Publishers Weekly reviewer who termed The Case for Goliath a "strained defense of American power." Higher praise, however, came from a Kirkus Reviews critic, who called the work "provocative and lucid: an owner's manual for empire builders, complete with warnings of what can go wrong."

With the 2007 book, Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government, Mandelbaum attempts to explain how the blending of individual freedom and liberty with the concept of majority rule—democracy, in fact—has come to dominate politics throughout the world. He makes two arguments to show how this has come about: one is that countries can see that democracy works, providing wealth and stability to those countries that have adopted it; a second explanation is that, as Mandelbaum contends, the spread of free markets around the world have worked like an incubator for democracy and its basic practices. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly pronounced this work an "engaging treatise," further commenting that "readers will find a lucid, accessible blend of history, political science and sociology, with a wealth of fresh insights into the making of the contemporary world." Similar praise came from Weekly Standard contributor Peter Berkowitz, who called Democracy's Good Name a "measured and instructive book."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, February, 1982, review of The Nuclear Revolution: International Politics before and after Hiroshima, p. 152, review of The Nuclear Question: The United States and Nuclear Weapons, 1946-1976, p. 285; December, 1990, review of The Fate of Nations: The Search for National Security in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, p. 1498.

Australian Journal of Political Science, July, 1997, Leslie Holmes, review of Postcommunism: Four Perspectives, p. 330.

Booklist, September 15, 1995, review of The Strategic Quadrangle: Russia, China, Japan, and the United States in East Asia, p. 879.

Choice, June, 1989, review of The Fate of Nations, p. 1751; September, 1995, review of The Strategic Quadrangle, p. 213.

Commentary, May, 1997, Alvin H. Bernstein, review of The Dawn of Peace in Europe, pp. 64-66; March, 2006, Gary Rosen, "Good Cop," p. 71.

Economist, August 15, 1981, review of The Nuclear Revolution, p. 73; December 5, 1981, review of The Nuclear Question, p. 111; January 14, 2006, "Better with Them than without Them; American Imperialism," p. 82.

English Historical Review, October, 1991, review of The Fate of Nations, p. 1078.

Europe, December, 2002, Robert J. Guttman, review of The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets in the Twenty-first Century, p. 47.

Europe-Asia Studies, January, 1996, David Kerr, review of The Strategic Quadrangle, pp. 155-156; June, 1996, Julian Birch, review of Central Asia and the World: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, p. 676; May, 1997, George Sanford, review of Postcommunism, p. 507.

Foreign Affairs, Volume 65, number 4, 1987, review of Reagan and Gorbechev, p. 900; Volume 68, number 2, 1989, review of The Fate of Nations, p. 183; Volume 68, number 5, 1989, review of America's Defense, p. 209; winter, 1991, Robert V. Legvold, review of The Rise of Nations in the Soviet Union: American Foreign Policy and the Disintegration of the U.S.S.R., p. 198; July-August, 1995, Donald Zagoria, review of The Strategic Quadrangle, p. 154; November-December, 1996, Stanley Hoffmann, review of The Dawn of Peace in Europe, p. 156; September-October, 1998, Robert Legvold, review of The New Russian Foreign Policy, p. 162; March-April, 2006, G. John Ikenberry, review of The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century.

Journal of Economic Literature, June, 1992, review of The Rise of Nations in the Soviet Union, p. 1021.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2002, review of The Ideas That Conquered the World, p. 1013; November 1, 2005, review of The Case for Goliath, p. 1174.

Library Journal, March 1, 1987, review of Reagan and Gorbechev, p. 66.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 14, 1983, review of The Nuclear Future, p. 4; January 25, 1987, review of Reagan and Gorbechev, p. 7.

National Interest, winter, 1996, Jeffrey Gedmin, review of The Dawn of Peace in Europe, pp. 77-81.

Naval War College Review, winter, 1999, review of Postcommunism, p. 143.

New Republic, September 6, 1982, review of The Nuclear Revolution, p. 31; November 14, 1988, Stephen M. Walt, review of The Fate of Nations, pp. 42-44.

New York Review of Books, May 29, 1997, review of The Dawn of Peace in Europe, p. 38.

New York Times, June 9, 2004, Pete Hamill, review of The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball, and What They See When They Do.

New York Times Book Review, January 8, 1984, review of The Nuclear Future, p. 19; January 25, 1987, review of Reagan and Gorbechev, p. 7; January 29, 1989, review of The Fate of Nations, p. 33; December 29, 1996, review of The Dawn of Peace in Europe, p. 17; March 5, 2006, Martin Walker, "American World Order," p. 12.

Orbis, fall, 1997, Harvey Sicherman, review of The Dawn of Peace in Europe, pp. 615-629.

Parameters: U.S. Army War College Quarterly, spring, 1996, review of The Strategic Quadrangle, p. 143; autumn, 1998, review of The Dawn of Peace in Europe, p. 141.

Perspectives on Political Science, summer, 1990, review of America's Defense, p. 165; summer, 1991, review of The Other Side of the Table: The Soviet Approach to Arms Control, p. 182; fall, 1993, review of The Rise of Nations in the Soviet Union, p. 184.

Political Science Quarterly, spring, 1982, review of The Nuclear Revolution, p. 169; fall, 1989, review of The Fate of Nations, p. 530; summer, 1990, review of America's Defense, p. 329; fall, 2006, Patrice McMahon "The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century," p. 501.

Publishers Weekly, September 2, 1988, review of The Fate of Nations, p. 96; July 22, 2002, review of The Ideas That Conquered the World, p. 165; August 29, 2005, review of The Case for Goliath, p. 41; June 4, 2007, review of Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government, p. 43.

Reference & Research Book News, May, 2006, review of The Case for Goliath.

Russian Review, January, 1993, review of The Other Side of the Table, p. 143.

Slavic Review, fall, 1995, review of Central Asia and the World, p. 821.

Times Literary Supplement, March 9, 1984, review of The Nuclear Future, p. 357; March 28, 1997, review of The Dawn of Peace in Europe, p. 28.

Wall Street Journal, November 29, 1996, review of The Dawn of Peace in Europe, p. A5.

Weekly Standard, April 10, 2006, Max Boot, "Power for Good; since the End of the Cold War, America the Indispensable," review of The Case for Goliath; October 22, 2007, Peter Berkowitz, "Democracy at Home; the Promise and Peril of Universal Suffrage," review of Democracy's Good Name.

ONLINE

Curled Up with a Good Book, http://www.curledup.com/ (March 15, 2008), Lydia R. Rome, review of The Meaning of Sports.

Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins university Web site, http://apps.sais-jhu.edu/ (October 4, 2002), Michael Mandelbaum faculty profile.