| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Gordon Silverstein. Imbalance of Powers: Constitutional Interpretation and the Making of American Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press. 1997. Pp. xi, 276. Cloth $49.95, paper $18.95.

Gordon Silverstein examines the role of the three branches of the national government in the making of American foreign policy. His primary focus is the post-World War II era, and in particular the congressional challenge to presidential prerogatives in foreign policy that culminated in the 1970s. From the perspective of a diplomatic historian, Silverstein's attention to the constitutional implications of the subject is welcome indeed. 1

Silverstein devotes about eighty pages, roughly one-third of his text, to the period up to World War II. Coverage is selective and more cursory than most historians will like. However, they may find themselves stimulated by his provocative argument that foreign affairs rarely occasioned disagreements between Congress and the presidency over constitutional questions of authority. John Marshall developed a fairly consistent doctrine, which Silverstein labels the court's "traditional interpretation," that foreign policy fell into the realm covered by the Supremacy Clause. Silverstein realizes that such a formulation left many issues unanswered, but by his account contemporary criticism centered on the fear that the national government might use its latitude in foreign affairs to justify enlarging its powers at home. Much later, to meet this threat, Justice George Sutherland formulated a highly influential argument in the Curtis-Wright case (1936). Sutherland agreed that the Constitution allowed the national government almost unlimited sovereignty over foreign affairs, but he insisted that the various checks and balances, most notably the powers reserved to the states, restricted national power in domestic matters. Thus was laid a doctrinal foundation for postwar conservatism. . . .

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