---
product_id: 8852408
title: "Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama"
brand: "stephen sestanovich"
price: "€ 34.79"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.fi/products/8852408-maximalist-america-in-the-world-from-truman-to-obama
store_origin: FI
region: Finland
---

# Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama

**Brand:** stephen sestanovich
**Price:** € 34.79
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama by stephen sestanovich
- **How much does it cost?** € 34.79 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.fi](https://www.desertcart.fi/products/8852408-maximalist-america-in-the-world-from-truman-to-obama)

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## Description

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Epictetus
  

*by E***S on Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2018*

Stephen Sestanovich (Columbia University) provides an inside, expert survey of American foreign policy and use of power since World War II. I highly recommend coupling this survey with Robert L. Beisner‘s magisterial biography of Dean Acheson during the Cold War. Mr. Sestanovich is highly expert in his field and provides a reliable road map of continuity and disruption in our foreign policy for over 70 years. Mr. Sestanovich provides a few very shocking details. For example, who would have imagined, when America tried to lean on Leonid Brezhnev to increase Jewish emigration from Russia to Israel, that Henry Kissinger would make the shocking utterance to President Nixon, that it would be a strictly Russian internal matter, if Brezhnev were to send Jews to gas chambers (Kissinger himself having been a refugee from Hitler)?! That utterance stopped my breath. Even for Kissinger that utterance seemed inconceivable, but there it was! Mr. Sestanovich is highly expert, having served from 1997 - 2001 as Ambassador-at-Large to the former Soviet Union for the State Department. I give this volume a very high recommendation, but an even higher recommendation goes to Beisner‘s work on Dean Acheson, which comprehensively narrates the great statesman‘s dynamic with Robert Schuman, Anthony Eden, Ernest Bevin, George Marshall, Dean Rusk, George Kennan and a bevy of statesmen in founding the Franco-German coal and steel union, NATO, the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine. Sestanovich‘s Maximalism and Beisner‘s Dean Acheson go optimally together.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    ... book covers foreign policy from Truman to Obama and pretty shows how each new administration tries to correct for ...
  

*by C***T on Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2014*

The book covers foreign policy from Truman to Obama and pretty shows how each new administration tries to correct for the excesses of the previous administration, very often they over correct in world affairs by either going too maximalist or by too much retrenching.. Clinton started as a retrenchment president, but ended up as an activist. HW Bush started out as a maximalist and ended up as a retrencher and was defeated. Eisenhower retrenched from Truman's maximalist, then JFK who followed Eisenhower was a maximalist.What the author makes apparent is that most all administration made serious errors in judgment and I sometimes wondered how the country has survived the continuous streams of administrations who made so many, sometimes enormous, errors in judgment in foreign affairs. Johnson going maximalist in Viet Nam and George W Bush trying to take over Iraq on the cheap with no real strategy for occupation. All of the administrations were made up of supposedly brilliant and learned men, yet all made often catastrophic mistakes.The author is pretty even handed in his criticism of both political parties.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Living History
  

*by D***L on Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2014*

I titled this review "Living History" because I have lived during this entire period and remember much of what happened.  Not to say I didn't learn a lot from this book; it should be required reading in middle school.  The author's writing is very clear and any middle school student should be able to read this without too much aid from the dictionary...a love of recent history would help, though.  The book is divided between "maximalist" and, if I remember correctly, "retrenchment" or "minimalist" presidents...a very few were both at one time or another.  I had not considered presidents in that light before, but the author makes his case convincingly.  One doesn't have to be middle school to learn from and enjoy this book.

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*Product available on Desertcart Finland*
*Store origin: FI*
*Last updated: 2026-01-25*