"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Though this rhetorical workhorse is first misquoted, then dismissed by Cumings in the early pages of this essay collection, Santayana’s maxim nonetheless best describes the importance of this volume to the national debate over current U.S. foreign policy. Cumings (Korea’s Place in the Sun), Abrahamian (Iran Between Two Revolutions) and Ma’oz (Syria and Israel) offer up detailed, swift accounts of the willfully forgotten history of America’s involvement in the politics and governance of North Korea, Iran and Syria-three countries that George W. Bush labeled the "axis of evil."