Moscow, Mysl Publishing House. 1976. 359 pp. Circulation 19,000. Price 1 rub. 40 kopecks. The author of the peer-reviewed work, Head of the Department of the Institute of the USA and Canada, Doctor of Historical Sciences G. A. Trofimenko examines the struggle of trends within the United States on the issue of war and peace in the plane of American military political ideology, that is, the conceptual framework in which US leaders acted and made foreign policy decisions. The author approaches the subject from the standpoint of consistent historicism. American military-political thought is analyzed in the book in its evolutionary development over 200 years of US history. Unlike many American bourgeois historians, who in such cases turn first of all to the works of their military, G. A. Trofimenko pays primary attention to the strategic precepts of the" founding fathers " of the United States (Presidents J. Washington, J. Adams, T. Jefferson, J. Madison, J. Monroe, J. K. Adams, J. Jackson, as well as such prominent statesmen as A. Hamilton, B. Franklin, J. Jay, G. Knox, B. Stoddert, J. Calhoun, etc.). This approach seems fully justified. The study of continuity in US military-political thought has proved very fruitful. The author was able to identify and summarize certain "constants" of the strategic thinking of the ruling class: canons and stereotypes that still have an impact on the development of strategic thinking. page 175 influence on foreign policy practice. The main ones are, as noted in the book: a) the idea of American messianism ("pre-determined fate"); b) the idea of the need to combine rational calculation with self-serving interest in planning actions abroad ("enlightened selfishness"); c) the approach to military force as the primary basis for the strength of the international position of the state; d the concept of the "balance of power" on the world stage, which is based not so much on preserving peace as on preserving the established international syst ... Read more