Because many aspects of urbanization are similar in different societies, urban politics provides a rich opportunity for comparative analysis. Most urban political studies tend to focus on government rather than politics. In the case of the books under review, however, political variables are offered as the key to understanding. Anton's work on Stockholm, Baker's on Lagos, Cohen's on Abidjan, Cornelius's on Mexico City, Elkin's on London, Fried's on Rome, Taubman's on cities in the U.S.S.R., and Wolpe's on Port Harcourt share a concern with the ability of political systems to deal with forces of urban growth and change. Studies of industrial countries try to account for the ability of systems to develop policies that control the urban environment, while studies of developing countries attempt to analyze patterns of resource distribution, social mobility, and class formation. Despite their flaws, gaps, and manifold differences, these studies are important steps in the right direction.

For a variety of reasons, explanations of Cuban foreign policy lack in persuasiveness. Some authors adopt a kitchen-sink approach in which any number of factors are adduced to explain Cuban behavior, but they do not pay adequate attention to how these various pieces fit together into a coherent whole. Other writers concentrate on a single factor to explain Cuba's globalism, but in the process load more explanatory power than it can bear onto a sole variable. Still others have a penchant for prescribing proper foreign policy for the United States, with the result that the study of Cuban policy in its own terms is often shortchanged. Only by studying the character, world view, and charismatic influence of Fidel Castro can a center of gravity be found for the study of Cuban foreign policy.

This article deals with bomber disarmament as a partial measure which might be agreed upon by the two major powers in the absence of more general progress toward disarmament. However, much of it is relevant to the suggestion that bomber disarmament be linked to the U.S. proposal for a freeze on procurement of strategic weapons. The relationship between a strategic freeze and bomber disarmament is very close.

Western observers of Soviet life have been apt to construe Soviet historiography as a political barometer. The character of statements rather than the events purportedly described by them has been the object of study. The tendentiousness of Soviet historical writing —its distortions and its employment of such elusive concepts as “relations of production”—have been not so much obstacles to investigation as they have been its subject matter.

In the underdeveloped countries—where live most of the world's people—the hope for economic progress now flames with great intensity. The new international capital facilities of the postwar period, the new programs for sharing modern science and technology, the new interest of wealthy lands in progress in the poor countries—all these present the latter with an opportunity to be rid of the poverty and squalor of their material existence. Their eyes naturally turn to the more developed countries for capital and technical knowledge, and for ideas.

Eleven recent books are surveyed in a review article which finds that there is still no up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of the interests and roles of the developing countries in the international monetary system. The rise of international commercial bank lending to developing countries has significantly altered the system by which balance-of-payments credit is offered. The International Monetary Fund has been relatively weakened, with especially serious implications for the poorest countries. Stabilization at both global and national levels has thus been impaired.

Studies of state institutions in socialist countries demonstrate the inadequacy of current paradigms of the state. Political reforms within these states—like those examined in the works on Yugoslavia that are under review—present opportunities to develop new approaches. Arguments about the democratizing pressures of economic reform or the attempts to legitimize the state by resolving the national question are contrasted to a view of the state as primarily managing its international boundary. Leaders respond to changes in foreign finance, trade, and security with policy shifts that are institutionalized by altering budgetary jurisdictions and rules about spending decisions in both state and economy. The ensuing political conflicts are bounded by the leaders' Marxian project to socialize the state as well as capital, in effect reducing the scope of the federal budget.

The two studies under review were issued in the series of the Library of Policy Sciences, edited by Harold D. Lasswell and Saul K. Padover, and are concerned with different areas of knowledge about communications. Sykewar presents the first detailed description of the activities and operations of the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF. The evaluations may not be definitive, but Dr. Lerner, a former intelligence officer in PWD, has made an important contribution toward codifying the lessons learned in this policy field.

A consensus seems to have emerged among government decision-makers, military strategists, and scholars that an invulnerable nuclear retaliatory capability is a national goal of high priority, if not top priority. The Kennedy Administration, to a much greater degree than its predecessor, has given indication that the rationale and ingredients of a “second-strike” nuclear strategy are understood and being concretely programmed into defense planning. The agreed-upon goal is for the United States to be able to launch a devastating retaliatory nuclear attack against the enemy regardless of the size of the enemy's first strike against the United States. “As a power which will never strike first,” explained President Kennedy in his March 28 defense budget message, “our hopes for anything close to an absolute deterrent must rest on weapons which come from hidden, moving, or invulnerable bases which will not be wiped out by surprise attack. A retaliatory capability based on adequate numbers of these weapons would deter any aggressor from launching or even threatening an attack—an attack he knew could not find or destroy enough of our force to prevent his own destruction.”

Whether we articulate them or not, the assumptions that we make concerning the future development of the Soviet system are fundamental to our thinking about American foreign policy. The objectives toward which we can reasonably direct our efforts, the philosophy of our situation, are in a very large measure a function of the image we have in our minds of the changes we discern or anticipate in the character of the society and the government of the Russian people.

For roughly a century—if we take the years from Fourier and Bentham to the triumph of Freud—the study of politics concerned itself mainly with institutions. Fourier, in plotting a Utopia, took his individuals just as they were, expecting by the perfection of social arrangements to turn individual weakness and vice into virtues. Bentham also by-passed the infinite problem of the individual (this was relegated to religion) and concentrated on the finite reform of institutions; the greatest happiness of the greatest number was never the principle of an individual psychology, although since 1832 Bentham's formula has grown ironically appropriate as the individual in a mass society has become, characteristically, a quantity.

There have been repeated generalizations that support of the United Nations is a cornerstone of United States foreign policy. On February 22, 1950, the President, in a major address dealing with foreign policy, indicated that the United Nations was the proper forum in which to seek an international agreement for the control of atomic weapons. In so doing he reaffirmed a previous statement of policy of “unfaltering support to the United Nations and related agencies,” the first of the “four points” of his inaugural address of January 1949. The President in this fashion sought to reassure the public that he had confidence in the United Nations and that he proposed to utilize its machinery to the full in the conduct of United States foreign relations.

In studying world affairs we are acutely conscious of the fact that many rivalries and conflicts are carried on with hostility on all sides, but within a framework of mutual respect. We have too many examples of honor among enemy soldiers to regard this as remarkable.

At the same time we know that one of the most exacerbated forms of conflict occurs when incompatible respect demands are involved. The “ex-colonials” of the globe are asserting themselves with vindictive passion against “white imperialists.” Most of these “ex-colonials” are colored, and they are reacting against the memory of years of humiliation, fancied or real, inflicted by the West. In some states of the “West,” notably the Union of South Africa and the United States, internal politics are torn by ethnic hostilities. Many historical cases support the proposition that conflict is peculiarly atrocious when an established system of caste is challenged, or is believed to be challenged. We recall the outrages perpetrated by serfs in revolt against lords, or by masters against revolting (or allegedly revolting) slaves.

SOVIET economic policy in the few years since Stalin's death has been characterized by flamboyance and ferment. In an attempt to free economic growth from the bottleneck of stagnation in agriculture, Khrushchev has sponsored some extravagant gambles in corn-growing and in expansion of the sown acreage. Policy toward the consumer has gone through two complete reversals: the regime at first experimented with offering the population an improvement in the standard of living, but is now once again asserting that abundance in the future requires austerity today. Perhaps the most startling innovation of all emerged in the past year when the regime began to develop a program of foreign economic assistance as a weapon in its economic competition with the capitalist part of the world. Because of their spectacular nature, these shifts of policy have attracted considerable attention in the West and have been commented on at length. Aware diat the Soviet Union is expanding her economic power at a more rapid rate than are the capitalist countries, Western students of the Soviet economy have sought in these policy changes-some clue as to whether its rate of growth is likely to decline or to be maintained in the future. The early indications of a rise in standards of living that would cause a reduced growth of heavy industry and so a decline in investment and in the rate of growth have now been dispelled. The inability of Soviet agriculture to provide an expanding food supply for a growing work force certainly appears to be a real threat to industrial growth, and with die failure of Khrushchev's gambles, this threat remains. Thus the evidence as to the over-all effect of these changes on the rate of expansion of die Soviet economy is still inconclusive.