Throwing out the good with the bad

A not so hot review for Paul Kennedy's book about the United Nations. A pity. There are two things that I find hard to get about a lot of smart right leaning thinkers. The first is why they get their panties in a twist about the UN. Sure, it has its problems, but its a useful tool. The other is why they often dismiss the Kennedy's outstanding Rise and Fall of the Great Powers just because he made a bad call at the very end. In the book he argues that as empires rise they tend to overstretch and thereby cause their own decline and fall. He examines the major European powers and shows their rises and fall. After this analysis he warned the US might be overstretching and had to worry about falling to the Soviets. Ok, a really bad call there. That said, it does not invalidate the study of the rise and fall of empires and it may be all the more useful today. What's more the book is a delight to read, unlike so many other books in the international relations field.