The focus of this book review is Colin Powell's autobiography " My American Journey". The book is told by Powell and follows his life from childhood, growing up in New York, through his career and his initial retirement from governmental activities. Aside from being incredibly inspirational in content, Powell's autobiography is extremely significant to the topic of international/interstate relations and particularly to those topics thus far discussed in this course (Political Science 250). Although at the time this autobiography was written, Powell had not actually held any position that would officially qualify him as anything more than a high ranking soldier, through Powell's experience as National Security Advisor to Ronald Reagan in 1987 and chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989, he has become more than qualified as a case study for international/interstate relations. Due to his significant involvement in the United States executive decision making dealing with international "crisis" (the end of the cold war, the invasion of Panama, the Gulf war, and Somalia) Powell's career has become not only a series of highly significant interstate interactions and conflicts, but a timeline by which one can observe the short and long term effects of such interactions and conflicts.
             As for the book, literarily, it contains an extremely detailed and concise account of Colin Powell's life from his start on the culturally diverse streets of what he lovingly refers to as "Banana Kelly" to the high points of his career as chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff. This book is a true autobiography in that Powell is telling his life story in excruciating detail, all the while giving his own opinions on matters that range from his days at the City College of New York and the Pershing rifles to his feelings of admiration for Mikhail Gorbachev's sweeping reforms in Russia. Assumi...