Today’s Foreign Policy Issues: Democrats and Republicans. By Trevor Rubenzer. Across the Aisle. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2017, 400 p. $97.00 (ISBN 978-1-4408-4366-2). E-book available (ISBN 978-1-4408-4367-9), call for pricing.

Today’s Foreign Policy Issues: Democrats and Republicans, as the title suggests, examines international and “intermestic” policy issues from the perspectives of our two major political parties. According to the introduction, this book “examines the proposals and positions of the two parties—from profound disagreements to areas of common ground” (p. viii); however, this nuanced approach is difficult to achieve in a volume written for the novice researcher. Further, the structure of the articles stresses differences rather than similarities. Presenting political parties as monolithic structures is also problematic. While parties have unifying platforms that are referred to often throughout the book, they tend to obscure internal divisions. This partisan framework also seems to lend itself to deepening cleavages, both real and imagined, for readers approaching the material from entrenched perspectives. And what of independent, libertarian, and green-party positions, among others?

The work is written by Trevor Rubenzer, and the singular voice allows for consistency of treatment across topics. The disadvantage of the single-author model is that we don’t hear the voices of experts on various topics covered. There is a unifying organizational template used for entries that enables readers to seamlessly compare and contrast topics. Every article begins with an overview paragraph followed by bulleted lists that summarize the positions of each party, a historical overview, and then sections that go into further detail about each party. “Further Reading” lists guide the reader to content from various sources that are readily available on the open web, at least for the time being. Articles are clearly written, avoid jargon, and provide concise overviews of topics ranging from climate change to nation building to China at a level appropriate for novice researchers.

The most significant contribution of this work is that it adds a much-needed update to current reference options addressing foreign policy. Alexander DeConde, Richard Dean Burns, and Fredrik Logevall’s Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2002), and Bruce W. Jentleson and Thomas G. Paterson’s Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations (Oxford, 1997), both excellent reference resources structured by topic with articles written by experts, are showing their age. And while Robert J. McMahon and Thomas W. Zeiler’s Guide to U.S. Foreign Policy: A Diplomatic History (CQ Press, 2012) is a bit more recent, its historical organization makes it difficult to compare. Unfortunately, currency is not enough to recommend the work, as it is fleeting. Today’s Foreign Policy Issues: Democrats and Republicans provides rather narrow and shallow coverage of foreign policy from a very specific and, in this reviewer’s opinion, questionable perspective.—Anne C. Deutsch, Sojourner Truth Library Instruction Program Coordinator and Research and Education Librarian, State University of New York at New Paltz