The Gulf: The Bush Presidencies and the Middle East

“A significant contribution to scholarship. Cairo helps to put America’s wars in the Middle East in the context of the larger American involvement in that region.” — Ryan Barilleaux, Miami University

“I would certianly recommend Cairo’s book for undergraduate and graduate courses in history and political science and for those seeking an introduction to either prsident’s efforts in the Middle East. Cairo’s work also provides a thought-provoking analysis that will be cited by many scholars seeking to advance the study of the making of U.S. foreign policy.” — Trevor T. Thrall, H-Net Review

“Others have ventured comparisons of the Bush presidencies, but Cairo does so more methodically and systematically. His analysis is well-documented, his interpretation cogent. His finding–that personality factors such as belief and style, not simply bureaucratic politics or international context, explain the marked contrast in the effectiveness of two Bush policies toward Iraq and the Mideast peace process–represents a significant corrective to the literature on determinants of US foreign policy.” — Robert F. Goeckel, SUNY Geneseo

“Political scientist Michael F. Cairo confronts questions of agency and decision making in this outstanding study of the two Bush presidencies, as they relate to two wars in the Gulf.

[…] In the end, this well-documented, elegantly written, forcefully argued book is both important and groundbreaking. This book will be of particularly high value to young scholars as a model of excellent scholarship that they may wish to follow and from which much can be learned.” — Presidential Studies Quarterly

“The major thesis of this highly readable and well-researched book is that, more than anyhting else, the beliefs, values, and ccharacters of Bush 41 and Bush 43 shaped the contours of US foreign policy.” — Choice

“This book is a remarkable accomplishment. Cairo has produced what students of the modern presidency have been waiting for — a thoughtful, critical, impeccably researched, and engagingly written study of the foreign policy of the two Bushes. In the first joint study of Bush 41 and Bush 43, Cairo deftly uses both a wide selection of the available literature as well as newly opened material from the Bush Papers to show how these two men defined the policy of a generation.” — John Robert Greene, Cazenovia College

Michael F. Cairo is associate professor of political science at Transylvania University, USA. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky.