John F. Kennedy's engagement with the developing world has been a major topic of scholarly debate in international history circles, driven recently by investigations into regions that existed at the margins of earlier work dominated by Cuba and Vietnam. Philip Muehlenbeck adds a worthwhile addition to Camelot's diplomatic corpus with Betting on the Africans: John F. Kennedy's Courting of African Nationalist Leaders. He depicts Kennedy's approach to the continent as especially enlightened, minimizing reactionary Cold War policies in favor of a new emphasis on development, engagement, and cooperation. Concentrating on the president's personal diplomacy with a plethora of African heads of state, Muehlenbeck asserts that charisma and intelligence became Kennedy's most effective weapons in the battle for the hearts and minds of a continent.
Kennedy entered the White House having devoted greater attention to the problems of nationalism and economic growth in the developing world than would any twentieth-century...