Halper (senior fellow, Centre of International Studies, Cambridge U., UK) and Clarke (senior fellow, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs) argue that foreign policy debates in the American public sphere are unusually susceptible to what they call Big Ideas, such as "Manifest Destiny," the "Domino Theory," and "Axis of Evil" that are amplified in the 24-7 media landscape and serve to obscure and silence the reservations of the "rational center," which includes career professionals, scholars, and analysts working in government, think tanks, and academia, as well as political activists and journalists with experience on the ground. This problem exists even in calm periods but is exacerbated in times of crisis, as they aim to demonstrate in historical discussion of the Spanish American War, the Vietnam War, and other crises. Their main focus is on current US foreign policy, which has been led astray by the silence of the rational center, and they call for these figures to reassert themselves in the public square. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Read Less