Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski offers a reasoned but unsparing assessment of the last three presidential administrations'' foreign policy. Though they cover less than two decades, these three administrations span a vitally important turning point in world history: the period in which the United States, having emerged from the Cold War with an unprecedented degree of power and prestige, managed to squander both in a remarkably short time. The tale of these three administrations is a tale of decline: from the competent but conventional thinking of the first Bush administration, to the good intentions hobbled by self-indulgence of the Clinton administration, to the mortgaging of America''s future by the suicidal statecraft" of the second Bush administration. Brzezinski concludes with a chapter on how America can regain its lost influence, if not its former dominance, in today''s era of global political awakening. This scholarly yet highly opinionated book is both con
