restige.
Quirk's thesis is that American policy at a crucial moment in the Mexican Revolution -- including the use of arms -- was shaped by sentiment and by a lack of information. It goes almost without saying that this is a frightening claim. Quirk explicitly makes the point that of all American presidents Wilson was the best equipped by his background and education to make the cool and reasonable judgments a crisis in foreign policy requires. Yet he failed to do so, and failed so miserably that the occupation of Veracruz remains the ugliest chapter in the relations of the Mexico and the United States.
Indeed, if Quirk's thesis is correct, policy depends far less on analysis than on interpretation. According to Quirk, men and their idiosyncracies precipitated the American occupation of Veracruz. As plausible as this position may be, it also leads Quirk astray, for he cannot maintain it without shifting his ground and, in several instances, contradicting himself.
Allowing that neither men nor events can be charact
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