A Lost Peace: Great Power Politics and the Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1967–1979 by Galen Jackson

The vast majority of Americans alive today who have no first-hand memories of the years 1965 to 1980 may nonetheless have some awareness of the U.S. debacle in Vietnam, the opening to China in 1971–1972, the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war and the related Arab oil embargo, the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon from the presidency in 1974, the Iranian revolution in 1979, and the subsequent taking of U.S. diplomats as hostages by the virulently anti-American leaders of the new Islamic Republic of Iran. Those with a bit more interest in international affairs might also be aware of the easing of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War rivalry in the détente of the early 1970s, a policy that was nearly discredited by the end of the decade. This latter puzzle is the topic of Galen Jackson's deeply researched book, A Lost Peace: Great Power Politics and the Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1967–1979...