This incisive and thought-provoking volume, based on the inaugural United States and the World Workshop held at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in September 2017, brings together a group of historians and political scientists and asks pointed questions about the legacy of US relations with China and Iran – two nations which, despite their many differences, loom large in the evolving world of twenty-first-century international relations.

The volume is broken into two parts. David P. Nickles lays out in succinct but comprehensive fashion the origins of the US–China rapprochement of the early 1970s. While navigating the personalities of Nixon, Mao, Kissinger and Deng, Nickles makes a compelling (and quite timely) argument centered on the durability of institutions. He argues that the institutionalization of diplomatic ties cemented the relationship, “so that outsized personalities or ideologues had considerably less impact” (21).

Nickles's chapter is a valuable piece that establishes the context for the remaining chapters, which cover topics ranging from the issue of Taiwan (Terry Lautz) to Chinese domestic politics (Dimitar D. Gueorguiev), the views of international students at US universities (Yingyi Ma) and interstate alliance building between the US and Japan in the East China Sea (Erik French). The authors note the complicated nature of US–Chinese relations, which feature mutual economic interests mixed with clashing strategic aims, but do not collectively argue for “containment” or “engagement,” two concepts that editor Osamah F. Khalil lays out in the volume's Introduction. One key takeaway is the importance of a mutual enemy: what united the US and China was shared antipathy towards the Soviet Union, including a recognition that closer ties could be economically beneficial. The roundtable discussion from the 2017 conference, a transcript of which is included in the volume, points to 2019 as a moment of transition, with China embarking upon its Belt and Road Initiative while using rising tensions between the US and Iran to form closer ties with Tehran.

Part II changes tack to analyze US–Iranian relations since the 1950s. Ervand Abrahamian, an esteemed scholar of Iranian history, discusses the 1953 coup d’état, a foundational moment in Iran's modern history. Malcolm Byrne offers a history of the declassification process which delayed the publication of documents implicating the US in the 1953 coup. David Collier explains how American policymakers lacked an understanding of Iranian political dynamics and thus failed to see the Islamic Revolution coming before it was too late. Adam M. Howard and Alexander R. Weiland use recently declassified documents to argue how an “arc of crisis” forced the Carter administration to take a more aggressive stance in the greater Gulf region as revolution unfolded in Iran. Pedram Maghsoud-Nia explains Iran's postrevolutionary policy, illustrating how confrontation with the US shaped the new government's approach to defense spending.

The volume's most valuable contribution, in this reader's opinion, is Abolghasem Bayyenat's survey of Iran's nuclear program and the decades-long process of negotiation and confrontation which produced the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The presentist focus of the volume constrains some of the authors’ conclusions. This is particularly true of Bayyenat's chapter, which adds an addendum related to the US decision in May 2018 to withdraw from the JCPOA. Using history to analyze an issue which remains in flux poses risks for the historian, a point vividly made by Richard Immerman in his concluding chapter. “‘Looking to the past to explain the present’ is a perilous enterprise,” while attempting to diagnose future issues through historical analysis “can prove to be disciplinary suicide” (222). It is to the volume's credit that this problem is not only addressed, but treated with proper consideration by a scholar of Prof. Immerman's eminence.

A disappointing feature of the volume is its relative lack of diversity. While several contributions come from scholars of Iranian and Chinese descent, Prof. Ma is the sole woman among fourteen contributors. Given the diversity of interests and perspectives on display, this is a notable and disappointing shortcoming in an otherwise important and timely volume.