Planning Foreign Policy: Can it Be Done?
LINCOLN BLOOMFIELD reviews the experience of policy planning staffs in the United States State Department and in foreign governments and sharply questions their effectiveness. Bloomfield concludes with suggestions for how to improve the incorporation of long-range thinking into foreign policy making.

The Reassertion of Congressional Power: New Curbs on the President
Harvey G. Zeidenstein surveys the provisions legislated by Congress from 1972 to 1977 to restrict the freedom of action of presidents in foreign policy, military deployments, weapons procurement and sales, intelligence activities, and impoundment of funds. He shows how some of these provisions go beyond strengthening the influence of Congress in its traditional legislative role and extend to giving Congress vetoes over specific administrative acts.

Congressional Politics and Urban Aid: A 1978 Postscript
Demetrios Caraley examines congressional voting on urban aid issues in 1977 and concludes that, contrary to what some policy makers have claimed, support for pro-urban programs did exist in the 95th Congress and was primarily dependent not on the number of "urban" constituencies, but on the size of the Democratic majority and the willingness of President Carter to mobilize it. Caraley also shows the extent to which snowbelt vs. sunbelt voting cleavages replaced more traditional ones.

Federal-Local Relations Under Block Grants
Richard P. Nathan and Paul R. Dommel report on changes that occurred in the pattern of federal-local relations as a result of the consolidation in 1974 of federal categorical aid programs for physical development into "community development block grants." They find that more decentralized decision making has occurred under the block grant system, but that as the program progressed, there was evidence of increased federal control.

U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changing Africa
Henry Bienen analyzes interests in southern Africa in relation to the nation's interest in Africa as a whole. He argues that Africa has become too differentiated, and relations between African states too complex, for the United States to have a single African policy.

Newsmen and Campaigners: Organization Men Make the News
Leon V. Sigal views newsmaking during presidential election campaigns as the product of interaction between two organizations: one composed of newsmen, the other of campaigners. He concludes that the news coverage that results from current organizational routines and journalistic conventions may favor the candidacy of outsiders over that of Washingtonians.

Herbert Croly, Progressive Ideology, and the FTC Act
Douglas Walter Jaenicke reexamines the origins of the Federal Trade Commission Act within the context of progressive thought and argues that the act was a victory neither for equal opportunity nor for big business.

Correspondence

A Pretty Good Club: The Founding Fathers of the U.S. Foreign Service, Martin Weil and W. W. Norton
Reviewed by Martin B. Travis

Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy, Roger Morris
Reviewed by Walter LaFeber

Decade of Decisions: American Policy toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967-1976, William B. Quandt
Reviewed by Naomi Joy Williams

The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective, Walter LaFeber
Reviewed by Thomas G. Paterson

The Missile Defense Controversy: Strategy, Technology, and Politics, 1955-1972, Ernest J. Yanarella
Reviewed by Robert H. Trice

The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance, 1950 to the Present, Douglas S. Blaufarb
Reviewed by Robert L. Gallucci

War: Controlling Escalation, Richard Smoke
Reviewed by Harvey Starr

The Structure of Violence: Armed Forces as Social Systems, Maury D. Feld
Reviewed by Thomas L. McNaugher

Tragic Choices, Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt
Reviewed by Catherine Gwin

Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems, Charles E. Lindblom
Reviewed by Michael Mandelbaum

Myth, Oil, and Politics: Introduction to the Political Economy of Petroleum, Charles F. Doran
Reviewed by Stephen D. Krasner

Politics and the Professors: The Great Society in Perspective, Henry J. Aaron
Reviewed by Robert Taggart

Doing Good: The Limits of Benevolence, David Rothman, Willard Gaylin, Ira Glasser and Steven Marcus
Reviewed by Bernard Barber

The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America, Daniel J. Kevles
Reviewed by N. P. Samios

The Sponsor: Notes on a Modern Potentate, Erik Barnouw
Reviewed by Doris A. Graber

Political Ideologies of Organized Labor: The New Deal Era, Ruth L. Horowitz
Reviewed by Harry Holloway

Congress in the American System, Carl P. Chelf
Reviewed by Judith H. Parris

American Democratic Theory: Pluralism and Its Critics, William Alton Kelso
Reviewed by Michael Parenti

Two Cheers for Capitalism, Irving Kristol
Reviewed by Robert Lekachman

The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions, William Julius Wilson
Reviewed by James L. Sundquist

Research to Answer What Blacks Ought to Have, Warren M. Banner
Reviewed by Winston Van Horne

The Ungovernable City: The Politics of Urban Problems and Policy Making, Douglas Yates
Reviewed by Stephen David

Police Work: The Social Organization of Policing, Peter K. Manning
Reviewed by James P. Gifford

The Quest for Justice: The Politics of School Finance Reform, Richard Lehne
Reviewed by Gerald Benjamin

The Builders: Houses, People, Neighborhoods, Governments, Money, Martin Mayer
Reviewed by Robert W. Ponte

Councils of Government: A Study of Political Incrementalism, Nelson Wikstrom
Reviewed by Vincent L. Marando

At the Grass Roots in the Garden State: Reform and Regular Democrats in New Jersey, Vicki Granet Semel
Reviewed by Duane Lockard

Crisis on the Left: Cold War Politics and American Liberals, 1947-1954, Mary Sperling McAuliffe
Reviewed by John P. Roche

Taxation and Political Change in the Young Nation, 1781-1833, Dall W. Forsythe
Reviewed by Edward Pessen

The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology, Lance Banning
Reviewed by James M. Banner

Christian Democracy in Western Germany: The CDU/CSU in Government and Opposition, 1945-1976, Geoffrey Pridham
Reviewed by Gerald Braunthal

Representation in Italy: Institutionalized Tradition and Electoral Choice, Samuel H. Barnes ; Italy at the Polls: The Parliamentary Elections of 1976, Howard R. Penniman
Reviewed by Anthony F. Greco

P'yongyang between Peking and Moscow: North Korea's Involvement in the Sino-Soviet Dispute, 1958-1975, Chin O. Chung
Reviewed by Steven I. Levine

Up to the Mountains and Down to the Villages: The Transfer of Youth from Urban to Rural China, Thomas P. Bernstein
Reviewed by Ronald N. Montaperto

A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, Alistair Horne
Reviewed by René Albrecht-Carrie

Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy, Michael C. Hudson
Reviewed by Robert O. Freedman

Diversity and Development in Southeast Asia: The Coming Decade, Frank H. Golay, Cynthia H. Enloe and Guy J. Pauker
Reviewed by Robert O. Tilman

China and the Major Powers in East Asia, A. Doak Barnett
Reviewed by Thomas Fingar

Peasant Politics: Struggle in a Dominican Village, Kenneth Evan Sharpe
Reviewed by Joel S. Migdal

The Weak in the World of the Strong: The Developing Countries in the International System, Robert L. Rothstein
Reviewed by Richard K. Betts