Description: "Rostow can be placed in the category of Dean Rusk and others who pondered difficult issues, made judgments, and had to live with them. . . . He was part of the establishment, a wise man, one who was very successful. . . . His memoirs are bound to interest many people, scholars and officials alike. They offer a fascinating look at several decades of history and scholarship."--Thomas W. Zeiler, author of Dean Rusk: Defending the American Mission AbroadA trusted advisor to Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson and one of America's leading professors of economic history, W. W. Rostow has helped shape the intellectual debate and governmental policies on major economic, political, and military issues since World War II. In this thought-provoking memoir, he takes a retrospective look at eleven key policy problems with which he has been involved to show how ideas flow into concrete action and how actions taken or not taken in the short term actually determine the long run that we call "the future." The issues that Rostow discusses are these: o The use of air power in Europe in the 1940so Working toward a united Europe during the Cold Waro The death of Joseph Stalin and early attempts to end the Cold Waro Eisenhower's Open Skies policyo The debate over foreign aid in the 1950so The economic revival of Koreao Efforts to control inflation in the 1960so Waiting for democracy in Chinao The Vietnam War and Southeast Asian policyo U.S. urban problems in disadvantaged neighborhoodso The challenges posed by declining population in the twenty-first centuryIn discussing how he and others have worked to meet these challenges, Rostow builds a compelling case for including long-term forces in themaking of current policy. He concludes his memoir with provocative reflections on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and on how individual actors shape history.

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