Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice Foreign Policy, Race, and the New American Century

Subjects:

• Multicultural Studies » Black Studies
• Political Science » International Relations

Reviews:

• Lusane analyzes the impact of race on U.S. foreign policy by examining how former Secretary of State Colin Powell and current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have constructed current policy. He argues that African Americans have a long history of participating in U.S. foreign policy and that blacks serving in foreign-policy posts in previous administrations have embraced their racial identities and stressed racial equality in the world. This, he writes, was owing to the historical racism experienced by blacks in the United States. According to Lusane, Powell and Rice have not embraced their racial identities unless doing so has promised to advance the Bush administration's agenda; instead, both champion the idea of individualism. This break with tradition has upset many in the African American community....Recommended.
  —Library Journal August 2006
• The author establishes that race has played a preeminent role in the assumptions underlying American foreign policy decisions and that the "war on terrorism" is narrowly defined to exclude the terrorism of "global human security" that Darfur and other places manifest....Lower-division undergraduates through graduate students.
  —Choice April 2007
• This work argues that the racial identity of Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, the first African Americans to be appointed to their positions, helped shape the presentation of the hegemonic foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration, but played very little role in the actual formation of that policy. Author Lusane suggests that they played a game of racial affinity that was used to justify a more dangerous foreign policy and to distract from their more substantive roles in policy formation. Along the way, he provides a history of African American attitudes towards foreign policy, examines the 2001 UN World Conference on Racism as a case study on the intersection of race and Bush foreign policy, and details the role of Powell and Rice in bringing us the Iraq War.
  —Reference & Research Book News August 2006
• [R]eveals how many Blacks presumably feel, and it therefore it performs a public service.
  —WAIS 2006

• Endorsement From Bill Fletcher, Jr.
  President, TransAfrica Forum
  Visiting Professor, Brooklyn College/City University of New York: Clarence Lusane offers a critique, not only of two individuals, but of a foreign policy that has further isolated the USA in a sharply polarizing world. Lusane contextualizes Powell and Rice as both part of a minority political tendency within Black America, as well as individuals the political Right utilizes in order to make more palatable its message of US global domination. Lusane's scholarship and passion make this a compelling book, and one which all students of US foreign policy and the politics of Black America should consider an invaluable text.
• Endorsement From Howard Winant
  UC Santa Barbara
  author of The World Is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since World War II: In a much-needed expose', Clarence Lusane documents the Bush administration's craven attempts to use the civil rights legacy to justify its war in Iraq, and the willful collaboration of Colin and Condi in that shameful equation. This thoroughly researched analysis of the twisted relationship between US racial politics and US foreign policy is a must-read for both academics and activists. Highly recommended!

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: What Color Is Hegemony?
• A Commonality of Circumstances: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Policy
• This Is Not Your Father's Republican Party: Powell, Rice, and the GOP
• Turkeys in the Straw: Race and Representation in the Era of George W. Bush
• What Color Is Hegemony? The U.S. New Security Paradigm
• The Clash: Iraq in the Crosshairs of Hegemony
• Counter-Hegemony in the Global South: Africa Challenges the Powell, Rice, Bush Doctrine
• Counter-Hegemony in the Global South: The Americans Say "No Pasaran" to the Bush Doctrine
• Washed Up: The Legacies of Powell and Rice (and Bush)

PDF Catalogs:
Praeger Politics 2007.pdf	Greenwood Multicultural Spring 2008.pdf