McCormick, J. (2009). American Foreign Policy and Process. Belmont, MA: Wadsworth Publishing
This book offers the audience a challenge of studying and understanding the ways in which foreign policies have been altered. The work illuminates on foreign policy process from the early years to the present era of terrorism. The author, McCormick, holds that foreign policy practices have been changed dramatically since the terror attack on 9/11.
While focusing on the changes of foreign policy, the author also tries to show several factors influencing the emergency of such changes in the government administration and in the civilian realms. He depicts that media have played a major role in bringing the changes seen in the field of foreign policies in many nations.
The author further reveals in-depth information on how the certain factors have influenced the decision made in the area of foreign policy by changing individuals’ societal/community values and beliefs. I therefore view the material as having significant usefulness when it is utilized in the part of literature review, as it gives different arguments on foreign policy and its process.
Spanier, J. & Hook, S. (2009). American Foreign Policy since World War II. Washington, DC: CQ Press
This print material is authored by Spanier in collaboration with Hook. The material is written to cover and reveal historical practices in the U.S administration. The content of the book not only appears to deal with the past of the U.S traditions of governance and policy making process, but it also tries to reveal much of the kind of leadership practices of the recent and current government.
On a precise statement, the work has several themes based on American leadership since the era of World War II, and it has gone through the reign of President Bush and finally to the current Obama’s administration. The authors have tried to bring a correlation or linkage of the U.S foreign policy under the various leaderships, and this helps the targeted audience to get a clear picture of the transitions/changes that have taken place in the area of foreign policy since the 1940s.
There are a number of topics which the authors have tackled in this book. These mainly include those topics dealing with the relations of the Americans and the other nations of the world, especially those put under the category of developing world, the regional relations of the U.S and the people from the East.
There are also other pertinent contents in this book, such as those dealing with the U.S participation and involvement in the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq. The authors delve further to discuss some of the effects of the wars, as it’s reported from the different sources of the press and media in general. In this way, the writers go on expounding more on recent economic crisis, which is a specific area whose effects/impacts have been felt globally, and while it still influences the kind of foreign policies.
As revealed in this book, it is a material containing diverse texts in the field of foreign policy. It is therefore an important material that can be used in the setting of the base research. This mean it’s can be used in the introductory part of a research work. However, it should be noted that due to the diversity of its contents, it may also fit well in any part in writing of the academic work.