Richard G. Lugar, Statesman of the Senate
Crafting Foreign Policy from Capitol Hill
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Two-time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard G. Lugar has been one of the most widely respected foreign policy experts in Congress for over three decades. In this illuminating profile, John T. Shaw examines Lugar's approach to lawmaking and diplomacy for what it reveals about the workings of the Senate and changes in that institution. Drawing on interviews with Lugar and other leading figures in foreign policy, Shaw chronicles Lugar's historic work on nuclear proliferation, arms control, energy, and global food issues, highlighting the senator's ability to influence American foreign policy in consequential ways. The book presents Lugar's career as an example of the role Congress can play in the shaping of foreign policy in an era of a strong executive branch. It demonstrates the importance of statesmanship in contemporary American political life while acknowledging the limitations of this approach to governance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this well-researched account, Shaw (The Ambassador: Inside the Life of a Working Diplomat) offers an admiring record of the work of Sen. Richard Lugar, two-time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, focusing on how he has influenced foreign policy. Spending little time on Lugar's background, Shaw focuses on the senator's interests and actions during his three decades in the Senate, ranging from the Nunn-Lugar program to control nuclear weapons to his interest in agriculture and America's role in ending the global food crisis. Attention is also given to Lugar as a truly bipartisan politician; while a lifelong and loyal Republican, he has worked with Democrats throughout his career, including such liberals as Barack Obama, and has famously argued with hard-line Republicans like Jesse Helms on matters of foreign policy. Shaw was granted five years of special access to Lugar and his work, and the admiration the author has is palpable, although not so much that it clouds the work. Shaw succumbs to occasional fawning descriptions of Lugar ("a man of prose and pragmatism rather than poetry and abstraction"), but diligently points out weaknesses in Lugar's career, particularly what many view as his failure to speak up against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Despite this and other legislative disappointments, Shaw gives a convincing description of Lugar's "considerable legislative legacy."
