In attacking the problem of revolution, as most others of major significance in history, we historians should think twice before we spurn the help offered by our colleagues in the social sciences, who have, as it happens, been particularly active in the last few years in theorizing about the typology, causes, and evolutionary patterns of this particular phenomenon. The purpose of this article is not to advance any new hypothesis, but to provide a summary view and critical examination of the work that has been going on.

The purpose of this article is to argue that the doctrine of rapid economic development coupled with organization theory is an inadequate basis for a nation-state. Our subject is Egypt, but we believe the analysis reaches beyond Egypt because the problem—the attempt to use organization theory with a doctrine of economic development as a political philosophy—can be found in a number of other countries; in a sense it can be found in most countries today. Egypt is a good case because salient aspects of the problem are writ large there and articulated with unusual clarity. While Egypt is in some ways unique, it shares with other countries certain characteristics that are basic to the analysis pursued in this article: underdevelopment, scarce resources, lack of enthusiasm for development on the part of the population, a “Western” and a “Communist” set of models to observe, a knowledge of modern organization theory, charismatic leadership, a one-party system (to the extent that there is a party in operation at all), and a lack of structural pluralism and group action.

It is becoming increasingly evident, if it is not clear already, that one of the most critical problems in the overall modernization of the developing countries is political development. In South Vietnam, in the Congo, in Brazil, in Indonesia—all over the underdeveloped world, the capacity of countries to cope with their own problems, and consequently the stance of the United States toward these nations, turns in varying degrees on the successes or failures of the political system.

This paper has two closely related purposes, both of which, if accomplished, may help to accelerate the development of international relations as an empirically based discipline. One is to identify the shifting and expanding membership of the international system during the 125 years between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of World War II. The other is to classify all such members of the system according to their attributed importance or status during the same period. In each case, the intent is not only to provide certain data which may be useful to the discipline, but to describe in considerable detail the procedures by which such data were gathered or, more accurately, “made.”

Foreign conflict behavior data covering long periods of time are urgently needed for the scientific investigation of international conflict. Except in the case of the most violent behavior, war, such data in aggregate form generally are not available to researchers.

Ever since the discovery there of gold and diamonds in the last half of the nineteenth century, South Africa has engaged the rapt attention of the Western world. The saga of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, perhaps the last of the “gentlemen's wars,” and now the refurbished accounts of the gallant defense of Rorke's Drift in the AngloZulu War of 1879 have been fascinating material for both novelists and film scriptwriters. In addition, the history of South Africa is replete with titanic figures who rank with, or perhaps even above, those from the rest of the continent: the aggressive architect of empire, Cecil J. Rhodes; the redoubtable Zulu warrior, Chaka; the dour, stern-willed President of the South African Republic, “Oom” (Uncle) Paul Kruger; the world-renowned statesman and philosopher, Field Marshal Jan C. Smuts; the founding father of Indian independence, Mohandas K. Gandhi; the compassionate and courageous writer, Alan S. Paton; and the dignified, modest Zulu Nobel Laureate, Albert J. Luthuli. By any standard, South Africa and its leaders of all races have made far-reaching and impressive contributions to the continent, the British Empire, and the world at large.

In his presidential address to the American Political Science Association in 1956, Harold Lasswell anticipated many of the scientific and technical developments of the ensuing years. Students of politics have been slow to accept the challenge he posed. The advance of science and technology is leading to notable realignments within the nation. No less, the relationships of nation-states are undergoing substantial alteration. These changes raise two questions with increasing urgency. What adjustments in our political institutions are necessary to accommodate the scientific revolution? What purposes is the growing power of technology to serve? From very different perspectives the three books under review face these questions. The Scientific Estate is concerned with constitutional balance among the elite groups of American society. The New Utopians seeks to moderate the Utopian tendencies of the systems scientists. Empire Revisited suggests that technological power be used positively to maintain order throughout the world.

When John Fitzgerald Kennedy became President of the United States in January 1961, many Americans, and probably an even greater number of other people, believed that an entirely new chapter had begun in American political history. People tend to read into contemporary events the trends they wish to see. For many, hopes and expectations about domestic and foreign policy alike were quickened by the impressive signs of youth, vigor, liberalism, and a broad outlook on the outside world.