About the Author

James Mann is the senior writer in residence at the CSIS International Security Program and the author of two critically acclaimed books- About Face- A History of America's Curious Relationship with China from Nixon to Clinton and Beijing Jeep. Previously, he was a long-time correspondent with the Los Angeles Times, and his writing has also appeared in The New Republic and The Atlantic Monthly.

Reviews

"Lucid, shrewd and after so many high decibel screeds from both the right and the left, blessedly level headed. It is necessary reading for anyone interested in understanding how and why America came to deal with the rest of the world the way it is doing under the Bush administration." —The New York Times "Mr. Mann has pulled back the curtain to expose three decades of political hardball, played to advance theories of the world that are, at best, incorrect. Read it and weep." —New York Observer"At a time when political reporting seems intent on shrinking every story about foreign affairs into a battle of hawks and doves, Rise of the Vulcans is a much needed antidote: a work of serious intellectual history and a nuanced analysis of the debates that will continue to shape American foreign policy long after the Vulcans themselves have left the stage." —The Wall Street Journal"The most detailed and comprehensive account of the Bush foreign policy team to date." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

Mann, a former correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, offers a lucid, nonpolemical and carefully researched history of President Bush's foreign policy team, the self-described "Vulcans" (after the Roman god of fire). In doing so, Mann illuminates the administration's rationale for the Iraqi war with impressive clarity. For the Vulcans, he shows, the war is not an anomalous foreign adventure or a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11. On the contrary, the foreign policy, devised by Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, was 35 years in the making and has its roots in the Republican Party faction that opposed d?tente with the Soviet Union. Vulcan philosophy has three major tenets: the embrace of pre-emptive action, the notion of an "unchallengeable American superpower" and the systematic export of America's democratic values. Implicit is the rejection of both the notion that transatlantic relationships are the natural focus of U.S. foreign policy and the Kissingeresque realpolitik that dominated much of 20th-century policy. Mann's purpose is to explicate Bush's foreign policy, not to make sweeping value judgments about its wisdom; he takes care to expose not only errors in the Vulcans' assumptions about the war in Iraq but also those of the war's opponents. This well-written, serious, evenhanded effort should be essential reading for anyone interested in American foreign policy. Agent, Rafe Sagalyn. First serial to the Atlantic Monthly and the New Yorker. (On sale Mar. 8) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

"Lucid, shrewd and after so many high decibel screeds from both the right and the left, blessedly level headed. It is necessary reading for anyone interested in understanding how and why America came to deal with the rest of the world the way it is doing under the Bush administration." -The New York Times

"Mr. Mann has pulled back the curtain to expose three decades of political hardball, played to advance theories of the world that are, at best, incorrect. Read it and weep." -New York Observer"At a time when political reporting seems intent on shrinking every story about foreign affairs into a battle of hawks and doves, Rise of the Vulcans is a much needed antidote: a work of serious intellectual history and a nuanced analysis of the debates that will continue to shape American foreign policy long after the Vulcans themselves have left the stage." -The Wall Street Journal"The most detailed and comprehensive account of the Bush foreign policy team to date." -Los Angeles Times Book Review