Surely, more has been written about the Russian Revolution and the ensuing forty years of Soviet rule than about any comparable episode in human history. The bibliography of items on the French Revolution occupies, it is said, one wall of the Bibliothéque Nationale. A complete bibliography on the Soviet Union—which is yet to be compiledand may never be because of the geometric rate at which it multiplies—would probably make that earlier cenotaph to scholarship shrink the way in which the earlier tombs diminished before the great complex at Karnak.

The published report on the international conference on NATO held at Princeton University in June 1957 has been read widely and with great interest. Every participant in that conference will recognize the report as an accurate and fair summary of the discussions. But its authors have also written in their introduction that “there is not a single participant who would give his unqualified support to the whole report.” This is certainly true of me.

The contemporary Indian scene is exciting. Of immediate relevance to the present article are two basic aspects of the evolving situation in India. First is the fact that there is in process, for anyone to see, a deliberate effort to raise living standards. The government of independent India articulated a framework for economic expansion almost a decade ago, at about the time that President Truman dramatically injected the problems of economic development in the arena of international affairs. Since then India has been proceeding with development activity more or less within this framework.

This article points out and analyzes some overt and implicit family imagery underlying political and economic discussion in one passage by Mao Tse-tung, and discusses the value of such analysis. Along the way, some methodological questions—the significance of form and content in such “content analysis,” and verification of the findings—are also considered.

Recent developments in the study of international politics reflect two major emphases. One comprises a variety of attempts at systematization and stresses the “frame of reference” approach; the other seeks specific knowledge of national policies in greater detail and stresses the “area studies” approach. Theoretically, the first explains international politics in terms of broad generalizations applicable to all international actors insofar as they conform to an ideal model or depart therefrom in a calculable manner. The second seeks to understand international politics in terms of the relationship of foreign policy to the total social and historical context from which it emerges. This article is an attempt to find a middle ground between these two emphases.