Is the Soviet Collapse Dragging the United States Down?
The mix of old and new in the United States's role as world leader creates ambiguity and confusion. The United States is looking for ways to regain its lost economic punch and to consolidate its world hegemony. At present, however, with no true enemy on the horizon, it is being dragged down by the Soviet collapse. The twentieth century was a period of transition but not from capitalism to socialism. The nonmarket alternative or challenge represented by the Soviet Union gave capitalism the means to overcome many obstacles to its reproduction and raise profits to new levels. The United States occupied a privileged position in that process. However, the twenty-first century demands new solutions for capitalism's inherent contradictions, and as a result the United States is apparently still trying to invent a new Soviet Union.
The Tragedy of American Diplomacy
This incisive interpretation of American foreign policy ranks as a classic in American thought. First published in 1959, the book offered an analysis of the wellsprings of American foreign policy that shed light on the tensions of the Cold War and the deeper impulses leading to the American intervention in Vietnam. William Appleman Williams brilliantly explores the ways in which ideology and political economy intertwined over time to propel American expansion and empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The powerful relevance of Williams's interpretation to world politics has only been strengthened by recent events in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. Williams allows us to see that the interests and beliefs that once sent American troops into Texas and California, or Latin America and East Asia, also propelled American forces into Iraq.
From student to therapist: exploring the first year of practice.
OBJECTIVES
The transition from classroom to clinical practice challenges many health professional students. This study used a phenomenological approach to explore the lived experience of rehabilitation students during their final placement and first year of practice.


METHOD
Students (n = 6) in occupational therapy and physical therapy wrote reflective journals every 2 weeks during their final fieldwork placement and first year of practice. The researchers independently analyzed the journals for common themes. An independent peer completed a blind analysis of two journals. Data were also compared with published first-person accounts of novice practitioners.


RESULTS
The lived experience of the first year of practice included four consecutive stages: Transition, Euphoria and Angst, Reality of Practice, and Adaptation. Themes from the journals included great expectations, competence, politics, shock, education, and strategies.


CONCLUSION
Recognizing the stages in the process of transition from student to therapist may assist in educational curriculum development and clinical support and supervision for new graduates. Educators need to continue to make education practice relevant while maintaining a theoretical perspective.