Death and the Statesman: The Culture and Psychology of U.S. Leaders During War. By Joseph B. Underhill-Cady. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 256p. $39.95.

Extract

Death and the Statesman appeared in print one month after the terrorist attacks on September 11, and the timing of its publication alone might attract a wide audience. The book deals with a significant subject of immediate interest to scholars and citizens alike—namely, what drives political leaders as they decide when and how to conduct war. Joseph Underhill-Cady argues that members of the foreign policymaking elite remain preoccupied with their own mortality. He suggests how their metaphors and rituals reveal their persistent fear and high anxiety about death, and he shows how their decisions to go to war can be read to reflect this preoccupation. For the foreign policy elite, the conduct of war constitutes an “immortality project.” According to the author, “As the elite sought to overcome their physical limitations, they likewise attempted to ensure the nation's transcendence of its mortal bounds” (p. 10). Underhill-Cady notes the gender-specific nature of foreign policymaking (p. 45). Macho men deny the inevitability of their own deaths and suppress their emotions, while they labor to ensure that the nation shall long endure. He traces the roots of their immortality projects to the Christian tradition: Man has fallen, but he can achieve salvation and thereby gain eternal life (pp. 52–55). The author renders a plausible, thought-provoking argument, although the evidence he produces could be more convincing.