In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq, Adam J. Berinsky. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2009, pp. 336. $69 (cloth); $23 (paperback); $5 to $23 (e-book).

In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq by Adam Berinsky, an Associate Professor of political science at MIT, is an original contribution to the study of public opinion and war that advances a theory of Elite Cues as the driver of public opinion on foreign policy. The manuscript includes a trove of previously untouched public opinion data from World War II, incorporating it into a multi-war analysis of public opinion from World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The effect is to delve deeper into the dynamics that underlie public opinion, thereby expertly illustrating that individuals respond less to informational cues and react more to elite position taking to guide their stance on any given war. The effort put into this work is obvious, and the product is challenging and insightful.

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