America's Half-Century

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Author :
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801850110
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis America's Half-Century by : Thomas J. McCormick

Download or read book America's Half-Century written by Thomas J. McCormick and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1995-02 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revised andupdated through 1993, it describes how the end of the Cold War affected the United States's global role as well as suggesting what possibilities lie ahead for a restructured world-system.

America's Half-century

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780801838774
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (387 download)

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Book Synopsis America's Half-century by : Thomas J. McCormick

Download or read book America's Half-century written by Thomas J. McCormick and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Incisive, eminently readable... McCormick reminds his readers of the unfashionable truths of our time: American domination of the postwar order, the weakness and conservatism of the Soviet Union, the gratuitousness of the nuclear arms race." -- The Nation

America’s Cold War

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Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674247345
Total Pages : 460 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis America’s Cold War by : Campbell Craig

Download or read book America’s Cold War written by Campbell Craig and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A creative, carefully researched, and incisive analysis of U.S. strategy during the long struggle against the Soviet Union.” —Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy “Craig and Logevall remind us that American foreign policy is decided as much by domestic pressures as external threats. America’s Cold War is history at its provocative best.” —Mark Atwood Lawrence, author of The Vietnam War The Cold War dominated world affairs during the half century following World War II. America prevailed, but only after fifty years of grim international struggle, costly wars in Korea and Vietnam, trillions of dollars in military spending, and decades of nuclear showdowns. Was all of that necessary? In this new edition of their landmark history, Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall engage with recent scholarship on the late Cold War, including the Reagan and Bush administrations and the collapse of the Soviet regime, and expand their discussion of the nuclear revolution and origins of the Vietnam War. Yet they maintain their original argument: that America’s response to a very real Soviet threat gave rise to a military and political system in Washington that is addicted to insecurity and the endless pursuit of enemies to destroy. America’s Cold War speaks vividly to debates about forever wars and threat inflation at the center of American politics today.

Does America Need a Foreign Policy?

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0684855682
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis Does America Need a Foreign Policy? by : Henry Kissinger

Download or read book Does America Need a Foreign Policy? written by Henry Kissinger and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-09-04 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this timely, thoughtful, and important book, at once far-seeing and brilliantly readable, America's most famous diplomatist explains why we urgently need a new and coherent foreign policy and what our foreign policy goals should be in this new millennium. In seven accessible chapters, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? provides a crystalline assessment of how the United States' ascendancy as the world's dominant presence in the twentieth century may be effectively reconciled with the urgent need in the twenty-first century to achieve a bold new world order. With a new Afterword by the author that addresses the situation in the aftermath of September 11, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? asks and answers the most pressing questions of our nation today.

America in the World

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691248745
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis America in the World by : Jeffrey A. Engel

Download or read book America in the World written by Jeffrey A. Engel and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wide-ranging anthology of primary texts in American foreign relations—now expanded to include documents from the Trump years to today How should America wield its power beyond its borders? Should it follow grand principles or act on narrow self-interest? Should it work in concert with other nations or avoid entangling alliances? America in the World captures the voices and viewpoints of some of the most provocative, eloquent, and influential people who participated in these and other momentous debates. Now fully revised and updated, this anthology brings together primary texts spanning a century and a half of U.S. foreign relations, illuminating how Americans have been arguing about the nation’s role in the world since its emergence as a world power in the late nineteenth century. Features more than 250 primary-source documents, reflecting an extraordinary range of views Includes two new chapters on the Trump years and the return of great power rivalries under Biden Sweeps broadly from the Gilded Age to emerging global challenges such as COVID-19 Shares the perspectives of presidents, secretaries of state, and generals as well as those of poets, songwriters, clergy, newspaper columnists, and novelists Also includes non-American perspectives on U.S. power

The Routledge History of U.S. Foreign Relations

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000516679
Total Pages : 736 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge History of U.S. Foreign Relations by : Tyson Reeder

Download or read book The Routledge History of U.S. Foreign Relations written by Tyson Reeder and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge History of U.S. Foreign Relations provides a comprehensive view of U.S. diplomacy and foreign affairs from the founding to the present. With contributions from recognized experts from around the world, this volume unveils America’s long and complicated history on the world stage. It presents the United States’ evolution from a weak player, even a European pawn, to a global hegemonic leader over the course of two and a half centuries. The contributors offer an expansive vision of U.S. foreign relations—from U.S.-Native American diplomacy in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the post-9/11 war on terror. They shed new light on well-known events and suggest future paths of research, and they capture lesser-known episodes that invite reconsideration of common assumptions about America’s place in the world. Bringing these discussions to a single forum, the book provides a strong reference source for scholars and students who seek to understand the broad themes and changing approaches to the field. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of U.S. history, political science, international relations, conflict resolution, and public policy, amongst other areas.

Charting a New Diplomatic Course

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Author :
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807127483
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (274 download)

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Book Synopsis Charting a New Diplomatic Course by : Cecil V. Crabb, Jr.

Download or read book Charting a New Diplomatic Course written by Cecil V. Crabb, Jr. and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2001-08-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America’s victory in the Cold War is a milestone in the nation’s diplomatic experience. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the defeat of communism have made “containment” policy—the foundation of U.S. foreign relations for almost a half-century—obsolete, and policymakers and political scientists alike struggle to decide what new strategy should guide the country’s involvement on the international stage. In this pathbreaking work, Cecil V. Crabb,Jr., Leila E. Sarieddine, and Glenn J.Antizzo identify and analyze six distinct approaches to America’s diplomatic course after the Cold War, addressing perhaps the most important question of our time: what should U.S. foreign policy be in the twenty-first century? First, the authors examine the familiar doctrine of American isolationism and consider an alternative approach, conservative neo-isolationism, which encourages policymakers to use careful discrimination but decisive action in assuming commitments abroad. Liberal neo-isolationism, a third possible course, resists active interventionist strategies because of the dangers they pose to congressional power and America’s democratic system. At the opposite end of the spectrum are conservative interventionism, the belief that America must maintain a strong military arsenal and engage in “preventative diplomacy”; liberal interventionism—the conviction that America has a responsibility to actively promote the cause of democracy and defend human rights beyond its own borders; and pragmatic interventionism, an approach—taken by the Clinton Administration—that relies on a cost/benefit analysis of policy as problems arise. Elegantly written and authoritatively researched, Charting a New Diplomatic Course provides a much- needed frame of reference for anyone interested in America’s future in international affairs.

America in the Cold War

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Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1610692071
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis America in the Cold War by : William T. Walker

Download or read book America in the Cold War written by William T. Walker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-01-22 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Including extensive, balanced information, keen insights, and helpful research tools, this book provides a valuable resource for students or general readers interested in American policy, diplomacy, and conduct during the Cold War. The Cold War not only comprised the dominant theme in American foreign policy during the second half of the 20th century; its influence was also imbedded into American culture. The half-century duration of the Cold War was an extended learning period during which the United States found that it could no longer remain an isolationist nation in a complex, quickly evolving, and dangerous world. This book covers the entire scope of the Cold War, from its background and origins before and after World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991, providing coverage of key events and concepts, such as the containment policy, McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, détente, and nuclear arms policies. The single-volume work also provides an annotated bibliography, primary documents, and biographies of key personalities during the Cold War, such as John Foster Dulles, J. Edgar Hoover, George F. Kennan, Henry Kissinger, Edward R. Murrow, and Ronald Reagan.

At the End of the American Century

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Author :
Publisher : Woodrow Wilson Center Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801859168
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (591 download)

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Book Synopsis At the End of the American Century by : Robert L. Hutchings

Download or read book At the End of the American Century written by Robert L. Hutchings and published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press. This book was released on 1998-06-22 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A distinguished group of authorities review essential questions of morality, interest, politics, and economics in U.S. foreign policy after the collapse of the Soviet empire. Contributors--prominent legislators, foreign policy makers, scholars, and business leaders--offer a back-to-basic inquiry into a number of important questions about foreign policy issues.

The Cold War and the Color Line

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Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674028546
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cold War and the Color Line by : Thomas BORSTELMANN

Download or read book The Cold War and the Color Line written by Thomas BORSTELMANN and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After World War II the United States faced two preeminent challenges: how to administer its responsibilities abroad as the world's strongest power, and how to manage the rising movement at home for racial justice and civil rights. The effort to contain the growing influence of the Soviet Union resulted in the Cold War, a conflict that emphasized the American commitment to freedom. The absence of that freedom for nonwhite American citizens confronted the nation's leaders with an embarrassing contradiction. Racial discrimination after 1945 was a foreign as well as a domestic problem. World War II opened the door to both the U.S. civil rights movement and the struggle of Asians and Africans abroad for independence from colonial rule. America's closest allies against the Soviet Union, however, were colonial powers whose interests had to be balanced against those of the emerging independent Third World in a multiracial, anticommunist alliance. At the same time, U.S. racial reform was essential to preserve the domestic consensus needed to sustain the Cold War struggle. The Cold War and the Color Line is the first comprehensive examination of how the Cold War intersected with the final destruction of global white supremacy. Thomas Borstelmann pays close attention to the two Souths--Southern Africa and the American South--as the primary sites of white authority's last stand. He reveals America's efforts to contain the racial polarization that threatened to unravel the anticommunist western alliance. In so doing, he recasts the history of American race relations in its true international context, one that is meaningful and relevant for our own era of globalization. Table of Contents: Preface Prologue 1. Race and Foreign Relations before 1945 2. Jim Crow's Coming Out 3. The Last Hurrah of the Old Color Line 4. Revolutions in the American South and Southern Africa 5. The Perilous Path to Equality 6. The End of the Cold War and White Supremacy Epilogue Notes Archives and Manuscript Collections Index Reviews of this book: In rich, informing detail enlivened with telling anecdote, Cornell historian Borstelmann unites under one umbrella two commonly separated strains of the U.S. post-WWII experience: our domestic political and cultural history, where the Civil Rights movement holds center stage, and our foreign policy, where the Cold War looms largest...No history could be more timely or more cogent. This densely detailed book, wide ranging in its sources, contains lessons that could play a vital role in reshaping American foreign and domestic policy. --Publishers Weekly Reviews of this book: [Borstelmann traces] the constellation of racial challenges each administration faced (focusing particularly on African affairs abroad and African American civil rights at home), rather than highlighting the crises that made headlines...By avoiding the crutch of "turning points" for storytelling convenience, he makes a convincing case that no single event can be untied from a constantly thickening web of connections among civil rights, American foreign policy, and world affairs. --Jesse Berrett, Village Voice Reviews of this book: Borstelmann...analyzes the history of white supremacy in relation to the history of the Cold War, with particular emphasis on both African Americans and Africa. In a book that makes a good supplement to Mary Dudziak's Cold War Civil Rights, he dissects the history of U.S. domestic race relations and foreign relations over the past half-century...This book provides new insights into the dynamics of American foreign policy and international affairs and will undoubtedly be a useful and welcome addition to the literature on U.S. foreign policy and race relations. Recommended. --Edward G. McCormack, Library Journal

America’s Cold War

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Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674035534
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis America’s Cold War by : Campbell Craig

Download or read book America’s Cold War written by Campbell Craig and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-30 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cold War dominated world affairs during the half century following World War II. It ended in victory for the United States, yet it was a costly triumph, claiming trillions of dollars in defense spending and the lives of nearly 100,000 U.S. soldiers. Apocalyptic anti-communism sharply limited the range of acceptable political debate, while American actions overseas led to the death of millions of innocent civilians and destabilized dozens of nations that posed no threat to the United States. In a brilliant new interpretation, Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall reexamine the successes and failures of America’s Cold War. The United States dealt effectively with the threats of Soviet predominance in Europe and of nuclear war in the early years of the conflict. But in engineering this policy, American leaders successfully paved the way for domestic actors and institutions with a vested interest in the struggle’s continuation. Long after the U.S.S.R. had been effectively contained, Washington continued to wage a virulent Cold War that entailed a massive arms buildup, wars in Korea and Vietnam, the support of repressive regimes and counterinsurgencies, and a pronounced militarization of American political culture. American foreign policy after 1945 was never simply a response to communist power or a crusade contrived solely by domestic interests. It was always an amalgamation of both. This provocative book lays bare the emergence of a political tradition in Washington that feeds on external dangers, real or imagined, a mindset that inflames U.S. foreign policy to this day.

Cycles in US Foreign Policy since the Cold War

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319486403
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (194 download)

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Book Synopsis Cycles in US Foreign Policy since the Cold War by : Thomas H. Henriksen

Download or read book Cycles in US Foreign Policy since the Cold War written by Thomas H. Henriksen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-01-25 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes how American international policy alternates between engagement and disengagement cycles in world affairs. These cycles provide a unique way to understand, assess, and describe fluctuations in America’s involvement or non-involvement overseas. In addition to its basic thesis, the book presents a fair-minded account of four presidents’ foreign policies in the post-Cold War period: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. It suggests recurring sources of cyclical change, along with implications for the future. An engaged or involved foreign policy entails the use of military power and diplomatic pressure against other powers to secure American ends. A disengaged on noninvolved policy relies on normal economic and political interaction with other states, which seeks to disassociation from entanglements.

The American Century and Beyond

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190649267
Total Pages : 736 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis The American Century and Beyond by : George C. Herring

Download or read book The American Century and Beyond written by George C. Herring and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-23 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his last years as president of the United States, an embattled George Washington yearned for a time when his nation would have "the strength of a Giant and there will be none who can make us afraid." At the turn of the twentieth century, the United States seemed poised to achieve a position of world power beyond what even Washington could have imagined. In The American Century and Beyond: U.S. Foreign Relations, 1893-2014, the second volume of a new split paperback edition of the award-winning From Colony to Superpower, George C. Herring recounts the rise of the United States from the dawn of what came to be known as the American Century. This fast-paced narrative tells a story of stunning successes and tragic failures, illuminating the central importance of foreign relations to the existence and survival of the nation. Herring shows how policymakers defined American interests broadly to include territorial expansion, access to growing markets, and the spread of the "American way of life." He recounts the United States' domination of the Caribbean and Pacific, its decisive involvement in two world wars, and the eventual victory in the half-century Cold War that left it, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world's lone superpower. But the unipolar moment turned out to be stunningly brief. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and the emergence of nations such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China have left the United States in a position that is uncertain at best. A new chapter brings Herring's sweeping narrative up through the Global War on Terror to the present.

The Cold War Comes to Main Street

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Author :
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700621881
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cold War Comes to Main Street by : Lisle A. Rose

Download or read book The Cold War Comes to Main Street written by Lisle A. Rose and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 1999-02-01 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1950, Main Street America-restored by victories in a global war and hopeful for a prosperous and peaceful future-was abruptly traumatized. The sudden prospect of thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union, Senator Joseph McCarthy's vicious anticommmunist crusade, and the beginning of the Korean War all combined to dampen the public mood. In the wake of these events, the Cold War invaded every home and convinced millions of Americans that the liberal establishment created by Franklin Roosevelt and sustained by Harry Truman had betrayed the public trust and placed the nation in mortal peril. Revealing the intense interplay between foreign policy, domestic politics, and public opinion, Lisle Rose argues that 1950 was a pivotal year for the nation. Thermonuclear terror brought "a clutching fear of mass death" to the forefront of public awareness, even as McCarthy's zealous campaign to root out "subversives" destroyed a sense of national community forged in the Great Depression and World War II. The Korean War, with its dramatic oscillations between victory and defeat, put the finishing touches on the national mood of crisis and hysteria. Drawing upon recently available Russian and Chinese sources, Rose sheds much new light on the aggressive designs of Stalin, Mao, and North Korea's Kim Il Sung in East Asia and places the American reaction to the North Korean invasion in a new and more realistic context. Rose argues that the convergence of Korea, McCarthy, and the Bomb wounded the nation in ways from which we've never fully recovered. He suggests, in fact, that the convergence may have paved the way for our involvement in Vietnam and, by eroding public trust in and support for government, launched the ultra-Right's campaign to dismantle the foundations of modern American liberalism. Engagingly written, The Cold War Comes to Main Street is a sophisticated synthesis that cuts to the core of a half-century of postwar national paranoia. It calls into question the assumptions of several generations of scholars about foreign affairs and domestic policies and will force readers to reconsider their assumptions about just when-and how-the nation lost its sense of community, confidence, and civility.

Latin America’s Cold War

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Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674055284
Total Pages : 408 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Latin America’s Cold War by : Hal Brands

Download or read book Latin America’s Cold War written by Hal Brands and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-05 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Latin America, the Cold War was anything but cold. Nor was it the so-called “long peace” afforded the world’s superpowers by their nuclear standoff. In this book, the first to take an international perspective on the postwar decades in the region, Hal Brands sets out to explain what exactly happened in Latin America during the Cold War, and why it was so traumatic. Tracing the tumultuous course of regional affairs from the late 1940s through the early 1990s, Latin America’s Cold War delves into the myriad crises and turning points of the period—the Cuban revolution and its aftermath; the recurring cycles of insurgency and counter-insurgency; the emergence of currents like the National Security Doctrine, liberation theology, and dependency theory; the rise and demise of a hemispheric diplomatic challenge to U.S. hegemony in the 1970s; the conflagration that engulfed Central America from the Nicaraguan revolution onward; and the democratic and economic reforms of the 1980s. Most important, the book chronicles these events in a way that is both multinational and multilayered, weaving the experiences of a diverse cast of characters into an understanding of how global, regional, and local influences interacted to shape Cold War crises in Latin America. Ultimately, Brands exposes Latin America’s Cold War as not a single conflict, but rather a series of overlapping political, social, geostrategic, and ideological struggles whose repercussions can be felt to this day.

America in the Cold War

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis America in the Cold War by : William Thomas Walker

Download or read book America in the Cold War written by William Thomas Walker and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cold War not only comprised the dominant theme in American foreign policy during the second half of the 20th century; its influence was also embedded into American culture. The half-century duration of the Cold War was an extended learning period during which the United States found that it could no longer remain an isolationist nation in a complex, quickly evolving, and dangerous world. This book covers the entire scope of the Cold War, from its background and origins before and after World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991, providing coverage of key events and concepts, such as the containment policy, McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, détente, and nuclear arms policies. The single-volume work also provides an annotated bibliography, primary documents, and biographies of key personalities during the Cold War, such as John Foster Dulles, J. Edgar Hoover, George F. Kennan, Henry Kissinger, Edward R. Murrow, and Ronald Reagan.

The United States and the End of the Cold War

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190282118
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis The United States and the End of the Cold War by : John Lewis Gaddis

Download or read book The United States and the End of the Cold War written by John Lewis Gaddis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1994-04-28 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cold War ended with an exhilarating wave of events: the toppling of the Berlin Wall, the rise of the dissident poet Vaclav Havel, the revolution in Romania. Americans rejoiced at the dramatic conclusion of the long struggle. "But victories in wars--hot or cold--tend to unfocus the mind," writes John Gaddis. "It can be a dangerous thing to have achieved one's objectives, because one then has to decide what to do next." In The United States and the End of the Cold War, Gaddis provides a sharp focus on the long history of the Cold War, shedding new light on its sudden ending, as well as on what might come next. In this provocative, insightful book, Gaddis offers a number of thoughtful essays on the history of international relations during the last half century. His reassessments of important figures and themes from the Cold War are sometimes surprising. For example, he portrays John Foster Dulles and Ronald Reagan as far more flexible and perceptive statesmen than the missile-toting caricatures depicted in editorial cartoons. And he takes a second look at the importance of espionage and intelligence in Cold War history, a field often left to buffs and spy novelists. Most important, he focuses on the central elements in superpower relations. In an eloquent account of the American style of foreign policy in the twentieth century, for instance, he explores how Americans (having learned the lesson of Adolf Hitler) consistently equated the forms of foreign governments with their external behavior, assuming that authoritarian states would be aggressive states. He also analyzes the "tectonics" of Cold War history, demonstrating how long term changes in international affairs and Soviet bloc countries built up pressures that led to the sudden earthquakes of 1989. And along the way, Gaddis illuminates such topics as the role of morality in American foreign policy, the relevance of nuclear weapons to the balance of power, and the objectives of containment. He even includes (and criticizes) an essay entitled, "How the Cold War Might End," written before the dramatic events of recent years, to demonstrate how quickly the tide of history can overwhelm contemporary analysis. Gaddis concludes with a thoughtful consideration of the problems and forces at work in the post-Cold War world. Author of such works as The Long Peace and Strategies of Containment, John Lewis Gaddis is one of the leading authorities on postwar American foreign policy. In these perceptive, highly readable essays, he provides a fresh assessment of the evolution of the Cold War, and insight into the shape of things to come.