Fifty years of foreign affairs / edited by Hamilton Fish Hamilton...[et.al]

To my surprise, I have discovered that in its fifty years of life Foreign Affairs has published over 2,600 articles. Even an editor who watched as the face of the world changed through those fifty years marvels, when confronted with the unexpected magnitude of the figure, that there was indeed such a number of subjects demand ing attention and that authors were found equipped to deal with them. We have mined this accumulation of riches and chosen thirty one articles for republication in this anniversary volume. To make the right choice was impossible. There was an immense variety of precious materials, and there was no test that could be used for judging their present relative value.

The articles chosen cannot be called the "best" of the period. Some are reprinted because they describe a problem or situation that has a parallel today and that again (or still) weighs on our minds. Some define policy decisions that ought to be made, and often were not. Others themselves influenced the making of important decisions. One or two profiles of individuals are included because their excel lence as works of art made it impossible to overlook them. Unfor tunately, some valuable articles had to be omitted simply because of their length.