Choice Review

Cohen (Boston Globe columnist) and Zenko (Foreign Policy columnist) lambaste what they term the "threat-industrial complex," a dangerously misleading American system whereby politicians and journalists alike ignore data indicating that the world is safer, freer, wealthier, healthier, and better educated than ever before, and continually trumpet exaggerated foreign threats to the US. Presented with warped national priorities, the American public then ignores more serious national security challenges at home, including substandard schools and health care, inadequate infrastructure, gun violence, income inequality, and political paralysis. To echo John Quincy Adams nearly 200 years ago (and quoted in this book), Clear and Present Safety testifies to the risks of venturing "abroad in search of monsters to destroy." The book is accessible throughout and full of historical context and up-to-date statistical evidence: e.g., terrorism by foreigners kills fewer Americans annually than falling televisions and furniture (p. 33), bathtub drownings (p. 85), and lightning strikes (p. 40). Follow-up editions might consider reordering chapters with historical analysis of threat escalation, kicking off the argument before turning to data outlining a safer, freer world. The last chapter offers an insightful, alternative post-9/11 history, and the conclusion serves as a poignant call to reprioritize US political focus domestically. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. --Mike Gunter, Jr., Rollins College