Could we have halted the sudden decline in our political fortunes in the Middle East and perhaps have avoided our present predicament altogether? This is the question which J. C. HUREWITZ endeavors to answer in his examination of our policy since the end of the Second World War. Mr. Hurewitz is Associate Professor of International Relations at Columbia and the author of three books on the Middle East, including a major work recently published in two volumes under the title, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, 1535-1956. He spent three years in the Middle East before the war; made a return visit there in 1954; and served as Political Advisor to the United States Cabinet Committee on Palestine in 1946.