The Foreign Service Journal, November 2010

40 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 0 Leading Them to the Promised Land: Woodrow Wilson, Covenant Theology and the Mexican Revolution, 1913-1915 Mark Benbow, Kent State University Press, 2010, $49, hardcover, 204 pages. Woodrow Wilson, the son of a Presbyterian minister and seminary professor, was influenced throughout his life by “a basic orthodox view of covenant theology as the foundation of his beliefs.” Leading Them to the Prom- ised Land explores the way this influenced his politics; specifically his handling of the Mexican Revolution from 1913 to 1915. Benbow presents Wilson as a methodical, careful leader who followed covenant theology almost to a fault: when faced with leaders who did not necessarily agree with him — such as Venustiano Carranza and Pancho Villa — Wilson’s political decisions became even more difficult to make. The book succinctly analyzes a short but intriguing period in American history and explores the often-tenuous link between church and state in American politics. A former resident historian at Washington, D.C.’s Woodrow Wilson House, Mark Benbow currently teaches American history at Marymount University in Arlington, Va. The Winning Delegate: An Insider’s Guide to Model United Nations (Second Edition) Kerem Turunç, iUniverse, 2009, $16.95, paperback, 188 pages. Kerem Turunç’s The Winning Delegate delivers exactly what its subtitle promises: an expert guide to the Model United Nations experience. Draw- ing from years of Model U.N. experience, Turunç pro- vides advice that will be helpful to any participant, from a newcomer to a veteran delegate. This well-organized book begins with an introduction to the history of the United Nations and Model U.N. Subsequent chapters detail the structure and protocol of the latter, guiding prospective delegates in everything from conference preparation to committee etiquette. The book concludes with two helpful appendices — a list of U.N. members and permanent observers, and the text of the preamble to the U.N. Charter — and a glos- sary of common acronyms and terms. KeremTurunç served as secretary-general of the Yale Model U.N. While still in high school at the American Collegiate Institute in Turkey, he co-founded and led his school’s team. A graduate of Yale University, Turunç currently lives in London. The Perils of Proximity: China-Japan Security Relations Richard C. Bush, Brookings Institution Press, 2010, $32.95, hardcover, 360 pages. This year observers marked a new milestone in China-Japan re- lations as China overtook Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. Modern China’s rise is the background to Richard Bush’s The Perils of Proximity , an examination of tensions between China and Japan as they have played out in the East China Sea. Bush is concerned with a “significant challenge” that will confront Washington, involving “groups of countries with which the U.S. seeks to maintain good relations but that cannot get along with one another.” Most of the book is dedicated to an examination of Chinese and Japanese military capacities and each country’s internal decision-making and national psychology. Richard Bush has spent more than two decades working in Congress, the National Intelligence Council and the State Department on East Asia issues. He is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and di- rector of its Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies. The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945-1989 Nicolas J. Cull, Cambridge University Press, 2009, $36.99, paperback, 580 pages. In telling the story of American public diplomacy during the Cold War, Nicholas Cull offers a strong affir- mation of the critical importance of soft power in ad- OF RELATED INTEREST