Cold wars and proxy conflicts Books
Cornell University Press Mr. X and the Pacific
Book SynopsisGeorge F. Kennan is well known as the preeminent American expert on the Soviet Union during the Cold War and the author of the doctrine of containment. In Mr. X and the Pacific, Paul J. Heer chronicles and assesses Kennan''s work in affecting US policy toward East Asia. Heer traces the origins, development, and bearing of Kennan''s strategic perspective on the Far East during his time as director of the State Department''s Policy Planning Staff from 1947 to 1950. The author follows Kennan''s career and evolution of his thinking as he subsequently became a prominent critic of American participation in the Vietnam War. Mr. X and the Pacific offers readers a new view of Kennan, revealing his importance and the totality of his role in East Asia policy, his struggle with American foreign policy in the region, and the ways in which Kennan''s legacy still has implications for how the United States approaches the region in the twenty-first century.Trade ReviewMeticulously researched and well-crafted.... Paul Heer’s insightful look into George Kennan’s views of the region during the early years of the Cold War can help us better understand and cope with the geopolitical challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. * Asian Review of Books *Heer's work is clearly written, widely researched, fair and balanced in its assessments, and a valuable contribution to our understanding of the influence of, and contradictory ideas sometimes held by, one of the most important foreign policymakers in the twentieth century. The organization by theme or nation works well due both to the nature of the material and to Heer's brief yet clear reminders of how one topic fits into another when appropriate. Also, although begun in the 1990s, as Heer explains in his opening, the work is quite timely. In the current international environment, a study that examines warnings against miscalculating America's interests, if not also capabilities, in East Asia is a welcome reminder that such miscalculations can often have serious and lasting ramifications for both the United States and the people in the region. * H-Diplo *There are insightful references to Kennan's hopes for reconciliation with Japan and China and much detail on Kennan's frustrations with US strategy changes in the Pacific and with Dean Acheson's replacing George Marshall as secretary of state. * Choice *[W]hat Heer has done in Mr. X and the Pacific is a success. His sober narrative proves worthy of his subject's powerful intellect in its careful analysis of the nuances of the historical record. * Journal of American-East Asian Relations *There has been no monograph focusing solely on Kennan's role in formulating U.S. Cold War policy in Asia, until Paul Heer's Mr. X and the Pacific. Heer's study meticulously traces Kennan's views of Asian countries and evaluates positive and negative legacies of Kennan's policy recommendations on the region. * Pacific Historical Review *Although known primarily as a Sovietologist, Kennan played a vital role in early Cold War US policy in East Asia, primarily with respect to the Chinese civil war and US policy in occupied Japan. Those several years are the primary focus of intelligence analyst-cum-scholar Paul Heer's meticulous and well-balanced critical study of Kennan's involvement in US East Asia policy. * PACIFIC AFFAIRS *Mr. X and the Pacific sheds light on how containment applied to East Asia... For those who are interested in US grand strategy in East Asia, especially in the era of the Cold War, this book is a must read. * H-War *
£97.20
Cornell University Press Losing Hearts and Minds
Book SynopsisMatthew K. Shannon provides readers with a reminder of a brief and congenial phase of the relationship between the United States and Iran. In Losing Hearts and Minds, Shannon tells the story of an influx of Iranian students to American college campuses between 1950 and 1979 that globalized U.S. institutions of higher education and produced alliances between Iranian youths and progressive Americans. Losing Hearts and Minds is a narrative rife with historical ironies. Because of its superpower competition with the USSR, the U.S. government worked with nongovernmental organizations to create the means for Iranians to train and study in the United States. The stated goal of this initiative was to establish a cultural foundation for the official relationship and to provide Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with educated elites to administer an ambitious program of socioeconomic development. Despite these goals, Shannon locates the incubation of at least one possible versionTrade ReviewIn telling this fascinating and troubling transnational history, Shannon illustrates to diplomatic historians how much can be gained by attending seriously to the political significance of education. * History of Education Quarterly *Losing Hearts and Minds is an important intervention in the historiography of US-Iran relations. Shannon's work has broadened our gaze beyond diplomats, soldiers, and spies, in order to consider the significance of activists, students, and technocrats, amongst others, in shaping the relationship between Iran and the United States....This is a long-overdue development that will no doubt influence the future trajectory of the historiography, particularly as historians of US-Iran relations look ahead to the fortieth anniversary of the Iranian Revolution in 2019. * H-Net *Shannon deserves praise for his impressive archival research, broad scope, and focus on students as transnational actors... Losing Hearts and Minds is an important addition to the literature on U.S.-Iranian relations. * AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW *In shedding light on the heretofore underappreciated importance of the Iranian student experience in the United States, Losing Hearts and Minds adds to our understanding of the Islamic Revolution and subsequent breakdown in U.S.-Iranian relations. Both a strong self-contained case study and part of a much larger, transnational narrative, it deserves a wide readership. * The Journal of American History *Shannon has written one of the finest available monographs on students as transnational actors. His book is also required reading for anyone wishing to comprehend the full story of U.S. relations with Pahlavi Iran. * Diplomatic History *American-Iranian Dialogues achieves what its authors set out to do. Its diverse chapters verify the significance of non-state actors in US-Iranian relations as well as the value of entangled history in that process. They also lay the groundwork for further work by authors and readers alike of editor Matthew Shannon's salutary anthology. * Michigan War Studies Review *
£42.30
Cornell University Press The Nuclear Spies
Book SynopsisWhy did the US intelligence services fail so spectacularly to know about the Soviet Union''s nuclear capabilities following World War II? As Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, shows us, that disastrous failure came just a few years after the Manhattan Project''s intelligence team had penetrated the Third Reich and knew every detail of the Nazi ''s plan for an atomic bomb. What changed and what went wrong?Houghton''s delightful retelling of this fascinating case of American spy ineffectiveness in the then new field of scientific intelligence provides us with a new look at the early years of the Cold War. During that time, scientific intelligence quickly grew to become a significant portion of the CIA budget as it struggled to contend with the incredible advance in weapons and other scientific discoveries immediately after World War II. As The Nuclear Spies shows, the abilities of the Soviet Union''s scientists, its rTrade ReviewIn this neat, enthralling study, Houghton wonders why this successful intelligence operation was followed by the failure to anticipate the first Soviet nuclear test in August 1949. * Foreign Affairs *A great read: Concise, fact-packed, laden with fascinating anecdotes, and chock full of insights... This book is for everyone, intelligence expert and layperson alike. A page turner. * The Cipher Brief *As Vince Houghton reports in this beautifully written and well-researched history, the American scientific and strategic community believed they were in a race with Nazi physics, and they had a nagging fear that they might not win that race. The Nuclear Spies explores the administrative, scientific, logistical, and intelligence aspects of the effort to collect, analyze, and disseminate information about a weapon that at the time was neither fully understood nor developed. * International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence *Vince Houghton has written an engaging and well-researched book focusing on the U.S. effort to gather scientific intelligence on the German atomic bomb program during World War II. Houghton expands his scope beyond the war to demonstrate that the scientific and atomic intelligence bureaucracy designed during the war withered in the immediate postwar era. * The Journal of American History *[A] useful introduction to the field of scientific intelligence. * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Principal Uncertainty 1. A Reasonable Fear: The U.S. (Mis)Perception of the German Nuclear Program 2. Making Something out of Nothing: The Creation of U.S. Nuclear Intelligence 3. Alsos: The Mission to Solve the Mystery of the German Bomb 4. Transitions: From the German Threat to the Soviet Menace 5. Regression: The Postwar Devolution of U.S. Nuclear Intelligence 6. Whistling in the Dark: The U.S. (Mis)Perception of the Soviet Nuclear Program Conclusion: Credit Where Credit Is Due Notes Selected Bibliography Index
£20.89
Cornell University Press To Kill Nations
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewIn To Kill Nations Edward Kaplan describesa long process of evolution and adaptation as U.S. political and military leaders grappled with integrating nuclear weapons into national defense after World War II. Strikingly, he sees not a sudden revolution but a gradual process of incremental changes in military preparedness policy and action. * Journal of American History *There are many other studies of weapons development and Eisenhower and Kennedy's approaches to national defense. The great strength of Kaplan's is his tracing of the evolution of US policy in response to perceived Soviet capabilities. He astutely demonstrates how the Berlin and Cuban missile crises exposed the drawbacks of preparing primarily for an atomic war with the Soviet Union.To Kill Nations will enlighten readers seeking an intelligent overview of the evolution of airpower strategy in the first twenty-five years of the Cold War as well as, more specifically, President Eisenhower's New Look security policy and Robert McNamara's influence on national security strategy during the Kennedy administration. * Michigan War Studies Review *Kaplan draws extensively on archival records, including declassified government documents, to tell the story of how US nuclear strategy went from being focused on winning nuclear war with the Soviet Union to being more in line with the [mutually assured destruction] thinking made famous by early nuclear deterrence scholars, such as Thomas Schelling.... The book is a well-researched, interesting history of SAC and SAC's influence on US national security strategy during the first twenty years of the Cold War. * H-NET Reviews *Edward Kaplan's To Kill Nations is a fascinating work that packs a thermonuclear punch of ideas and arguments into 223 pages of dense but readable text (260 including endnotes, etc.). The work is suitable for anyone from advanced undergraduates to experts in the field. * Strategy Bridge *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Antecedents 2. Declaration, Action, and the Air-Atomic Strategy 3. Finding a Place 4. The Fantastic Compression of Time 5. To Kill a Nation 6. Stalemate, Finite Deterrence, Polaris, and SIOP-62 7. New Sheriff in Town 8. End of an Era Conclusion Key to Sources and Abbreviations Notes Index
£18.89
Cornell University Press Atomic Americans
Book SynopsisAt the dawn of the Atomic Age, Americans encountered troubling new questions brought about by the nuclear revolution: In a representative democracy, who is responsible for national public safety? How do citizens imagine themselves as members of the national collective when faced with the priority of individual survival? What do nuclear weapons mean for transparency and accountability in government? What role should scientific experts occupy within a democratic government? Nuclear weapons created a new arena for debating individual and collective rights. In turn, they threatened to destabilize the very basis of American citizenship.As Sarah E. Robey shows in Atomic Americans, people negotiated the contours of nuclear citizenship through overlapping public discussions about survival. Policymakers and citizens disagreed about the scale of civil defense programs and other public safety measures. As the public learned more about the dangers of nuclear fallout, criticTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Wars to Come 1. Stop "Play[ing] Pattycake with the Whole Issue": Citizen Calls for Civil Defense 2. "Between the Devil and the Deep": Civil Defense and the Early Cold War Political Landscape 3. The Man in the White Lab Coat: The Uses of Scientists and Scientific Authority 4. The Fallout from Fallout: The Peacetime Threat 5. Atomic America: The Expert Public and Nuclear Dissent Conclusion: Renouncing the Nuclear in Nuclear Citizenship
£39.60
Cornell University Press Arc of Containment
Book SynopsisArc of Containment recasts the history of American empire in Southeast and East Asia from World War II through the end of American intervention in Vietnam. Setting aside the classic story of anxiety about falling dominoes, Wen-Qing Ngoei articulates a new regional history premised on strong security and sure containment guaranteed by Anglo-American cooperation.Ngoei argues that anticommunist nationalism in Southeast Asia intersected with preexisting local antipathy toward China and the Chinese diaspora to usher the region from European-dominated colonialism to US hegemony. Central to this revisionary strategic assessment is the place of British power and the effects of direct neocolonial military might and less overt cultural influences based on decades of colonial rule, as well as the considerable influence of Southeast Asian actors upon Anglo-American imperial strategy throughout the post-war period. Arc of Containment demonstrates that AmTrade ReviewNgoei issues a sad warning about the costs for the peoples of the area subjected to the new and re-emergent Asian cold war challenges. This is an important scholarly contribution. * Choice *Wen-Qing Ngoei's Arc of Containment: Britain, the United States, and Anticommunism in Southeast Asia is a thought-provoking, compelling, and significant contribution to the study of American hegemony and intervention in postwar Southeast Asia. * Southeast Asian Studies *In this well-argued and convincing book, Wen-Qing Ngoei... delivers a perceptive and comprehensive... overview of the diplomatic and strategic evolution of Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s. Arc of Containment situates the Vietnam War in a regional context, and students of history, diplomacy, politics, and security should find it interesting and illuminating. * The Journal of Asian Studies *Arc of Containment, which is based upon adroit trawling in the archives of the principal nations at issue—Great Britain, the United States, Singapore, and Malaysia—is certainly one of the more intriguing explorations of Washington's excruciating encounter in Southeast Asia; and, like many good books, it sheds light relentlessly on matters not necessarily addressed frontally: most pointedly, Washington's conflict then entente with China. * Diplomatic History *By bringing the agency and influence of Southeast Asian actors into his analysis, Ngoei's book offers more regional insight to interested readers seeking knowledge about American influence in Southeast Asia. The book itself represents a noteworthy intersection of historical, comparative, and security scholarship and would be of equal interest to historians, political scientists, and regional scholars alike. * PACIFIC AFFAIRS *This relatively slim volume illuminates as it enlightens [a] vivid testament to its immense value. -- Diplomatic History
£22.49
Cornell University Press Ambassadors of Social Progress
Book SynopsisAmbassadors of Social Progress examines the ways in which blind activists from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe entered the postwar international disability movement and shaped its content and its course. Maria Cristina Galmarini shows that the international work of socialist blind activists was defined by the larger politics of the Cold War and, in many respects, represented a field of competition with the West in which the East could shine. Yet, her study also reveals that socialist blind politics went beyond propaganda. When socialist activists joined the international blind movement, they initiated an exchange of experiences that profoundly impacted everyone involved. Not only did the international blind movement turn global disability welfare from philanthropy to self-advocacy, but it also gave East European and Soviet activists a new set of ideas and technologies to improve their own national movements. By analyzing the intersection of disability and politics, Ambassadors of Social Progress enables a deeper, bottom-up understanding of cultural relations during the Cold War. Galmarini significantly contributes to the little-studied history of disability in socialist Europe, and ultimately shows that disability activism did not start as an import from the West in the post-1989 period, but rather had a long and meaningful tradition that was rooted in the socialist system of welfare and needed to be reinvented when this system fell apart.
£42.30
Stanford University Press Revolution in the Terra do Sol: The Cold War in
Book SynopsisSarah Sarzynski's cultural history of Cold War–era Brazil examines the influence of revolutionary social movements in Northeastern Brazil during the lead-up to the 1964 coup that would bring the military to power for 21 years. Rural social movements that unfolded in the Northeast beginning in the 1950s inspired Brazilian and international filmmakers, intellectuals, politicians, and journalists to envision a potential social revolution in Brazil. But in the wake of the Cuban Revolution, the strength of rural social movements also raised fears about the threat of communism and hemispheric security. Turning to sources including Cinema Novo films, biographies, chapbook literature, and materials from U.S. and Brazilian government archives, Sarzynski shows how representations of the Northeast depended on persistent stereotypes depicting the region as backward, impoverished, and violent. By late March 1964, Brazilian Armed Forces faced little resistance when overthrowing democratically elected leaders in part because of the widely held belief that the violence and chaos in the "backward" Northeast threatened the modern Brazilian nation. Sarzynski's cultural history recasts conventional narratives of the Cold War in Brazil, showing how local struggles over land reform and rural workers' rights were part of broader ideological debates over capitalism and communism, Third World independence, and modernization on a global scale.Trade Review"Revolution in the Terra do Sol deftly analyzes the different images and tropes about the Brazilian Northeast that were employed by peasant groups, the Catholic Church, the U.S. government, the Brazilian Left, and conservative elites to justify their understanding of the region's reality as social conflicts intensified on the eve of the 1964 coup d'état." -- James Green * Brown University *"This book gives serious consideration to powerful recurring tropes of Northeast Brazil—messianic communities, bloodthirsty bandits, starving peasants—and will help readers to appreciate the power of these vivid representations, and to identify the ways in which they limited understandings of the complex social struggles taking place within Brazil in the years before and after the dictatorship of 1964-1985." -- Candace Slater * University of California, Berkeley *"Sarzynski's incisive analysis...critically adds to traditional historiographical emphases on peasant mobilization and counterinsurgency doctrine. In tracing the broader historical arc and cultural framework of northeastern Brazilian power struggles, she demonstrates the methodological value of an interdisciplinary approach to the history of Cold War Latin America." -- Seth Garfield * Hispanic American Historical Review *
£53.60
Stanford University Press Goodbye, My Havana: The Life and Times of a
Book SynopsisAn eyewitness account of idealism, self-discovery, and loss under one of the twentieth-century's most repressive political regimes Set against a backdrop of world-changing events during the headiest years of the Cuban Revolution, Goodbye, My Havana follows young Connie Veltfort as her once relatively privileged life among a community of anti-imperialist expatriates turns to progressive disillusionment and heartbreak. The consolidation of Castro's position brings violence, cruelty, and betrayal to Connie's doorstep. And the crackdown that ultimately forces her family and others to flee for their lives includes homosexuals among its targets—Connie's coming-of-age story is one also about the dangers of coming out. Looking back with a mixture of hardheaded clarity and tenderness at her alter ego and a forgotten era, with this gripping graphic memoir Anna Veltfort takes leave of the past even as she brings neglected moments of the Cold War into the present.Trade Review"Anna Veltfort's graphic novel is both historically important and utterly engaging. Her early life, in which she brushed shoulders with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara while navigating the dangers of a hidden queer existence, is portrayed in exquisite, uncompromising, and impeccably researched detail, all in the 'clear line' style of Hergé's Tintin. This remarkable and heartfelt book is a loving ode to Cuba, a cautionary tale about the politics of oppression, and proof positive that the personal is always political and the political always personal."—Justin Hall, editor of No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics"With clear and striking images, Veltfort's insider/outsider view of 1960s Cuba offers a resonant glimpse into an often misunderstood time and place. From moment to moment, readers will find themselves both riveted and wonderfully informed."—Chantel Acevedo, author of The Distant Marvels: A Novel"The combination of features that make Veltfort's experience and its representation here unique is mindboggling. This story of a woman and a nation simultaneously coming of age, their histories inextricably bound together during each of their most formative years, is like no other book I know of."—Alejandro Velasco, New York University"A lovely and sensitive graphic memoir that retraces the life experiences of a thoughtful young woman trying to find her own way among ambivalent Cubans and sanctimonious expats in the early days of revolutionary Cuba. I rooted for Anna on every page."—Sherine F. Hamdy, University of California, Irvine"The drawings are meticulous and brilliantly colored, many accompanied by historical documents, lending great authenticity to the work as a snapshot of the time....[The] work is undeniably unique and effective in recreating not only the socioeconomic scarcity but the reigning political paranoia and the social anxiety felt by any dissenter resisting the government's aspirations for the isle at that time."—Katrina Spencer, Booklist"Veltfort was 16 years old in 1962 when her communist parents moved her family from the San Francisco Bay Area to Havana; her insightful memoir relates anecdotes from those heady days when both she and Cuba changed rapidly....Among often partisan portrayals of Cuba, Veltfort's memoir of a rare life's triumphs and tragedies stands out for its nuanced portrayal."—Publishers Weekly"While it's easy to lose sight of the stories of individuals within the grand narratives of geopolitics,Goodbye, My Havana succeeds in focusing its attention on the lives that affect and are affected by this moment in history....a resonant reminder that social movements are not defined by the rhetoric of their leaders, but by the freedoms afforded or denied to those communities that society most often marginalizes."—Lorissa Rinehart, Hyperallergic"[Anna Veltfort] opens up with first-person charm and, she makes us feel, honesty.she makes terrific use of the compositional and collage possibilities of the graphic form."—Lorna Scott Fox, Times Literary Supplement"Goodbye, My Havana portrays love on multiple levels: the natural love between humans, the eternal love of humans for art, and the patriotic love shaped by the revolutionary state... Veltfort shows the human cost of this unilateral, obligatory love."—Toloo Riazi, Latino Book Review"Anna Veltfort's Goodbye, My Havana is one of the most important and innovative books about Cuba to be published recently. A graphic designer and illustrator, Anna Veltfort has produced a graphic memoir that is riveting and visually enticing. After such a long literary silence, she gets to tell her own story. And what a story it is."—Ruth Behar, Cuban StudiesTable of Contents1. Havana Bay 2. The University of Havana 3. The Sierra Maestra 4. "Morgan!" and the Malecón 5. The Revolutionary Offensive 6. A Family Visit 7. The Last Ship
£19.79
University of Massachusetts Press Upstaging the Cold War: American Dissent and
Book SynopsisTraditional interpretations of the 1950s have emphasised how American anti-communists deployed censorship and the blacklist to silence dissent, particularly in the realm of foreign policy. Yet those efforts at repression did not always succeed. Throughout the early years of the Cold War, a significant number of writers and performers continued to express controversial views about international relations in Hollywood films, through the new medium of television, on the Broadway stage, and from behind the scenes. By promoting superpower co-operation, decolonisation, nuclear disarmament, and other taboo causes, dissident artists such as Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, Rod Serling, Dalton Trumbo, Reginald Rose, and Paddy Chayefsky managed both to stretch the boundaries of Cold War ideology and to undermine some of its basic assumptions. Working at times under assumed names and in some cases outside the United States, they took on the role of informal diplomats who competed with Washington in representing America to the world. Ironically, the dissidents’ international appeal eventually persuaded the U.S. foreign policy establishment that their unconventional views could be an asset in the Cold War contest for “hearts and minds,” and their artistic work an effective means to sell American values and culture abroad. By the end of the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration not only appropriated the work of these talented artists but enlisted some of them to serve as official voices of Cold War cultural diplomacy.
£21.80
University of Massachusetts Press A Call to Conscience: The Anti-Contra War
Book SynopsisUnlike earlier U.S. interventions in Latin America, the Reagan administration’s attempt to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua during the 1980s was not allowed to proceed quietly. Tens of thousands of American citizens organised and agitated against U.S. aid to the counterrevolutionary guerrillas, known as “contras.” Believing the Contra War to be unnecessary, immoral, and illegal, they challenged the administration’s Cold War stereotypes, warned of “another Vietnam,” and called on the United States to abide by international norms. A Call to Conscience offers the first comprehensive history of the anti–Contra War campaign and its Nicaragua connections. Roger Peace places this eight-year campaign in the context of previous American interventions in Latin America, the Cold War, and other grassroots oppositional movements. Based on interviews with American and Nicaraguan citizens and leaders, archival records of activist organisations, and official government documents, this book reveals activist motivations, analyses the organisational dynamics of the anti–Contra War campaign, and contrasts perceptions of the campaign in Managua and Washington. Peace shows how a variety of civic groups and networks—religious, leftist, peace, veteran, labour, women’s rights—worked together in a decentralised campaign that involved extensive transnational cooperation.
£25.60
University of Massachusetts Press Storytelling and Science: Rewriting Oppenheimer
Book SynopsisNo single figure embodies Cold War science more than the renowned physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Although other scientists may have been more influential in establishing the institutions and policies of the nuclear age, none has loomed larger in the popular imagination than the “father of the atomic bomb.” Americans have been drawn to the story of the Manhattan Project Oppenheimer helped lead and riveted by the McCarthy-era politics that caught him in its crosshairs. Journalists and politicians, writers and artists have told Oppenheimer's story in many different ways since he first gained notoriety in 1945. In Storytelling and Science, David K. Hecht examines why they did so, and what they hoped to achieve through their stories.From the outset, accounts of Oppenheimer's life and work were deployed for multiple ends: to trumpet or denigrate the value of science, to settle old scores or advocate new policies, to register dissent or express anxieties. In these different renditions, Oppenheimer was alternately portrayed as hero and villain, establishment figure and principled outsider, “destroyer of worlds” and humanist critic. Yet beneath the varying details of these stories, Hecht discerns important patterns in the way that audiences interpret, and often misinterpret, news about science. In the end, he argues, we find that science itself has surprisingly little to do with how its truths are assimilated by the public. Instead its meaning is shaped by narrative traditions and myths that frame how we think and write about it.
£21.80
University of Massachusetts Press Nuclear Freeze in a Cold War: The Reagan
Book SynopsisThe early 1980s were a tense time. The nuclear arms race was escalating, Reagan administration officials bragged about winning a nuclear war, and superpower diplomatic relations were at a new low. Nuclear war was a real possibility and antinuclear activism surged. By 1982 the Nuclear Freeze campaign had become the largest peace movement in American history. In support, celebrities, authors, publishers, and filmmakers saturated popular culture with critiques of Reagan’s arms buildup, which threatened to turn public opinion against the president. Alarmed, the Reagan administration worked to co- opt the rhetoric of the nuclear freeze and contain antinuclear activism. Recently declassified White House memoranda reveal a concerted campaign to defeat activists’ efforts. In this book, William M. Knoblauch examines these new sources, as well as the influence of notable personalities like Carl Sagan and popular culture such as the film The Day After, to demonstrate how cultural activism ultimately influenced the administration’s shift in rhetoric and, in time, its stance on the arms race.Trade Review“This is a well- written book and the author has mined some very good primary sources. it’s way past time for someone to engage the significance of Reagan- era antinuclear cultural activism.” — Edward Linenthal, author of Symbolic Defense: The Cultural Significance of the Strategic Defense Initiative and The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory
£21.80
University of Massachusetts Press We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes: Late Cold War
Book SynopsisIn the moments before his weekly radio address hit the airwaves in 1984, Ronald Reagan made an off-the-record joke: 'I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.' As reports of the stunt leaked to the press, many Americans did not find themselves laughing along with the president. Long a fervent warrior against what he termed the 'Evil Empire,' by the mid-1980s, Reagan confronted growing domestic opposition to his revival of the Cold War. While numerous histories of the era have glorified the 'Decade of Greed,' historian Andrew Hunt instead explores the period's robust political and cultural dissent.We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes focuses on a striking array of protest movements that took up issues such as the nuclear arms race, U.S. intervention in Central America, and American investments in South Africa. Hunt's new history of the eighties investigates how film, television, and other facets of popular culture critiqued Washington's Cold War policies and reveals that activists and cultural rebels alike posed a more meaningful challenge to the Cold War's excesses than their predecessors in the McCarthy era.
£23.70
University of Massachusetts Press Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games: International
Book SynopsisDuring the Cold War, political tensions associated with the division of Germany came to influence the world of competitive sport. In the 1950s, West Germany and its NATO allies refused to recognize the communist East German state and barred its national teams from sporting competitions. The construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 further exacerbated these pressures, with East German teams denied travel to several world championships. These tensions would only intensify in the run-up to the 1968 Olympics.In Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games, Heather L. Dichter considers how NATO and its member states used sport as a diplomatic arena during the height of the Cold War, and how international sport responded to political interference. Drawing on archival materials from NATO, foreign ministries, domestic and international sport functionaries, and newspapers, Dichter examines controversies surrounding the 1968 Summer and Winter Olympic Games, particularly the bidding process between countries to host the events. As she demonstrates, during the Cold War sport and politics became so intertwined that they had the power to fundamentally transform each other.
£69.30
University of Massachusetts Press Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games: International
Book SynopsisDuring the Cold War, political tensions associated with the division of Germany came to influence the world of competitive sport. In the 1950s, West Germany and its NATO allies refused to recognize the communist East German state and barred its national teams from sporting competitions. The construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 further exacerbated these pressures, with East German teams denied travel to several world championships. These tensions would only intensify in the run-up to the 1968 Olympics.In Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games, Heather L. Dichter considers how NATO and its member states used sport as a diplomatic arena during the height of the Cold War, and how international sport responded to political interference. Drawing on archival materials from NATO, foreign ministries, domestic and international sport functionaries, and newspapers, Dichter examines controversies surrounding the 1968 Summer and Winter Olympic Games, particularly the bidding process between countries to host the events. As she demonstrates, during the Cold War sport and politics became so intertwined that they had the power to fundamentally transform each other.
£24.65
University of Massachusetts Press The Moiseyev Dance Company Tours America:
Book SynopsisDuring the Cold War, dancers and musicians from the United States and the USSR were drawn into the battle for hearts and minds, crossing the Iron Curtain to prove their artistic and ideological prowess. After the passage of the Lacy-Zarubin Agreement, direct cultural exchange between the two superpowers opened up, and the Moiseyev Dance Company arrived in the United States in 1958. The first Soviet cultural representatives to tour America, this folk-dance troupe’s repertoire included dances from territories controlled or influenced by the USSR, including Uzbekistan, Crimea, and Poland. Drawing on contemporary personal and published accounts, Victoria Hallinan explores why the dancers garnered overwhelming acclaim during their multicity tour and Ed Sullivan Show appearance. The “boy-meets-girl” love stories of the dances, and their idealized view of multiple Soviet cultures living together in harmony, presented a comforting image of post–World War II gender norms and race relations for audiences. Americans saw the dancers—their supposed enemies—as humans rather than agents of communist contagion.Trade ReviewIn this important book, Hallinan uses audience reception to analyze how Americans looked at the troupe, and she has done enormous archival research to track down letters from audience members to the Moiseyev company, dance reviews in major US magazines and newspapers, and contemporary accounts of the company found in newspapers." - Anthony Shay, author of The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company: Dancing Diplomats"The Moiseyev Dance Company Tours America is a significant contribution to the fields of dance, cultural diplomacy, and Cold War studies. It will appeal to scholars and readers in American studies, international relations, and other studies of the performing arts." - Anne Searcy, author of Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange
£72.25
Boydell & Brewer Ltd The Secret Police Dossier of Herta Müller: A
Book SynopsisAn in-depth investigation of the Romanian secret police's file on Müller, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature, re-creating a "file story" of her surveillance. "Herta Müller should share her Nobel with the Securitate." This comment by a former officer in the Romanian secret police, or Securitate, was in reaction to hearing that Müller, a German writer originally from Romania, had won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature. Communist Romania's infamous secret police was indeed a protagonist in Müller's work, though an undesired and dreaded one: most of her writings are deeply and explicitly anchored in Ceaușescu's Romania and her own traumatic experiences with the Securitate. Müller's file traces her surveillance from 1983 until after she emigrated to West Germany in 1987. She has written extensively in reaction to reading her file, but primarily addresses its gaps, begging the question what information the file does in fact contain. This book is an in-depth investigation of Müller's file, and engages with other related files, including that of her then-husband, the writer Richard Wagner. Valentina Glajar treats the files as primary sources in order to re-create the story of Müller's surveillance by the Securitate. In such an intrusive culture of surveillance, surviving the system often meant a certain degree of entanglement: for victims, collaborators, and implicated subjects alike. Veiled in secrecy for decades, these compelling and complex documents shed light on a boundary between victims and perpetrators as porous as the Iron Curtain itself.Table of ContentsPreface List of Terms and Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1: The Filed Story of Niederungen Chapter 2: Contact Stories: The Author and the Officer Chapter 3: Conspiratorial Stories: The Securitate Sources MAYER, SORIN, and EVA Chapter 4: Captured Stories: Remote Audio Surveillance Chapter 5: Migrating Stories Epilogue Bibliography Appendix I: Müller's Surveillance Timeline (1974-1993) Appendix II: Author's Accreditation by CNSAS Index
£89.25
Academica Press The Warsaw Pact, 1969-1985: The Pinnacle and Path
Book SynopsisIn The Warsaw Pact, 1969-1985, young Czech scholar Mat?j Bílý analyzes the internal tensions of the Soviet-led Cold War alliance as its careened toward its end. Starting with the peak of the alliance’s power under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the book follows its ossification to its increasing haplessness under Brezhnev’s successors Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. Rooted in detailed research in Czech, Polish, and German archives, this book presents much previously unknown information about the alliance’s mechanisms as it served as one of the Kremlin’s increasingly ineffective tools for managing the Eastern Bloc.Bílý’s findings prove that the Warsaw Pact never became an initiator of political processes within the Soviet sphere of interest and only reactively addressed military issues. The alliance's framework did not allow it to become an incubator or agent of any independent development in the Soviet sphere of influence. To the contrary, events within the Warsaw Pact reflected the overall dismal situation in the Eastern Bloc and the changing policy of the Kremlin toward its East European satellites. Because of the alliance’s lack of flexibility and cumbersome internal mechanisms, it was unable to react to the dynamic challenges of the 1980s and helplessly followed a path to its own end.
£112.50
AU Press American Labour's Cold War Abroad: From Deep
Book SynopsisCarew presents a lively and clear account of what has largely been an unknown dimension of the Cold War. In impressive detail, Carew maps the international programs of the American Federation of Labour–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) during the Cold War and its relations with labour organizations abroad, in addition to providing a summary of the labour situation of a dozen or more countries including Finland, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Greece, and India. American Labour’s Cold War Abroad reveals how the Cold War compelled trade unionists to reflect on the role of unions in a free society. Yet there was to be no meeting of minds on this, and at the end of the 1960s the AFL–CIO broke with the mainstream of the international labour movement to pursue its own crusade against communism.
£41.65
Liverpool University Press Cold War Negritude: Form and Alignment in French
Book SynopsisCold War Negritude is the first book-length study of francophone Caribbean literature to foreground the political context of the global Cold War. It focuses on three canonical francophone Caribbean writers—René Depestre, Aimé Césaire, and Jacques-Stephen Alexis—whose literary careers and political alignments spanned all three “worlds” of the 1950s Cold War order. As black Caribbean authors who wrote in French, who participated directly in the global communist movement, and whose engagements with Marxist thought and practice were mediated by their colonial relationship to France, these writers expressed unique insight into this bipolar system as it was taking shape. The book shows how, over the course of the 1950s, French Caribbean Marxist authors re-evaluated the literary aesthetics of Negritude and sought to develop alternatives that would be adequate to the radically changed world system of the Cold War. Through close readings of literary, theoretical, and political texts by Depestre, Césaire, and Alexis, I show that this formal shift reflected a strikingly changed understanding of what it meant to write engaged literature in the new, bipolar world order. Debates about literary aesthetics became the proxy battlefield on which Antillean writers promoted and fought for their different visions of an emancipated Caribbean modernity. Consequent to their complicated Cold War alignments, these Antillean authors developed original and unorthodox Marxist literary aesthetics that syncretized an array of socialist literary tendencies from around the globe.Trade Review“Such restorative work is much needed in the field of francophone postcolonial studies, and decolonial studies more broadly.” - Jackqueline Frost“This is a remarkable, original and penetrating study of French Caribbean literature in the context of the Cold War.” - Dr Musab YounisTable of ContentsINTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 Black Bloc: Reading the First Congress Through a Cold War Lens CHAPTER 2 Comrade Depestre: The Césaire-Depestre Debate and René Depestre’s Lessons in National Poetry CHAPTER 3 Poetry of the Césaire-Soviet Split : The Melancholy Geopolitics of Aimé Césaire’s Cold War Poems CHAPTER 4 Engineer of the Haitian Soul: Jacques Stephen Alexis’ Experiments in Socialist Realism Epilogue Acknowledgements Bibliography
£95.00
Liverpool University Press Cold War: Building for Nuclear Confrontation
Book Synopsis
£30.40
Leiden University Press The Lives of Cold War Afro-Asianism
Book Synopsis
£93.60
Tulika Islam, South Asia and the Cold War
Book Synopsis
£38.25
NUS Press Southeast Asia After the Cold War: A Contemporary
Book SynopsisInternational politics in Southeast Asia since end of the Cold War in 1990 can be understood within the frames of order and an emerging regionalism embodied in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). But order and regionalism are now under seige, with a new global strategic rebalancing under way. The region is now forced to contemplate new risks, even the emergence of new sorts of cold war, rivalry and conflict.Ang Cheng Guan, author of Southeast Asia's Cold War, writes here in the mode of contemporary history, presenting a complete, analytically informed narrative that covers the region, highlighting change, continuity and context.Crucial as a tool to make sense of the dynamics of the region, this account of Southeast Asia's international relations will also be of immediate relevance to those in China, the USA and elsewhere who engage with the region, with its young, dynamic population, and its strategic position across the world's key choke-points of trade. This is essential reading for decisionmakers who wish to understand our current situation, looking back to the end of the Cold War thirty years ago, and forward to an uncertain future.Trade ReviewNo other author has matched the width and depth of analysis as has Ang Cheng Guan. His histories of Southeast Asian international politics, from the perspective of a Singaporean, the centre of a diverse and dynamic region, provides a prospective not achieved by any other authority. Southeast Asia After the Cold War brings his penetrating account up to date.|Deft and imaginative sourcing gives Southeast Asia After the Cold War a clear and compelling perspective from within the region—one that renders alternative perspectives trivial. In linking the evolution of Southeast Asian regionalism to the uncertain search for a new order, Ang Cheng Guan has written a brilliantly conceived book.
£23.36
NUS Press Fighting for Health: Medicine in Cold War Southeast Asia
Book SynopsisAn overlooked history of Southeast Asia’s varied healthcare regimes during the Cold War. For far too long, Southeast Asia has been treated as a static backdrop for the exploits and discoveries of Western biomedical doctors. Yet, Southeast Asians have been vital to the significant developments in the prevention and treatment of diseases that have taken place in the region and beyond. Many of the institutions and people that shaped subsequent responses to outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics first began their work in Southeast Asia during the Cold War. The diversity of approaches to health and medicine during that era also reminds us of the possibilities, and limits, of human intervention in the face of political, social, economic, and microbial realities. The people and places of Southeast Asia have provided clinical trials for different health regimes. Fighting for Health highlights new perspectives and methods that have evolved from research presented at regional conferences, including the History of Medicine in Southeast Asia (HOMSEA) series. These insights serve to challenge dominant models of the medical humanities.Table of ContentsList of TablesList of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: Health, Agriculture and Animism in the 'Development' of Portuguese Timor, 1945- 1975Chapter 2: Tool of Domination and Act of Benevolence: Medicine and Healthcare during the Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960Chapter 3: Health Sector Contestation in Cold War Laos, 1950-1975Chapter 4: More Eastern than Traditional: The Making of Ðông y in the Republic of Vietnam during the Cold WarChapter 5: Building a "socialist health system": Soviet assistance in malaria control in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during the Cold WarChapter 6: Mobilising Applied Medical Knowledge for Indonesia: Soekarnoist Science and Asian-African Solidarity, 1950sChapter 7: The Cholera Pandemic, Chinese Diaspora, and the Cold War Politics in Southeast Asia and China during the 1960sChapter 8: Managing Wartime Conditions: South Korean Developmental Ambitions, Public Health, and Emerging Forms of Overseas Medical Outreach, 1964-1973GlossaryBibliographyContributorsIndex
£26.31
NUS Press US-Singapore Relations, 1965-1975: Strategic
Book SynopsisAt the height of the Cold War in Southeast Asia, the foreign relations between the United States and Singapore demonstrated the interplay between America’s strategy of containment and Singapore’s efforts at a non-aligned foreign policy. But there is a deeper story. American involvement in the Vietnam War not only held back the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, but also catalysed economic and strategic cooperation between the United States and Singapore. The author argues that Singapore might not have achieved its success so rapidly without the support of the US.As the war in Vietnam raged on, Singapore became a critical refueling point, also providing ship and aircraft repair for the US military. Commercial and strategic support from the United States lifted Singapore out of the economic doom predicted for the city-state after secession from Malaysia, cessation of Indonesian trade during Konfrontasi and Britain’s military withdrawal. By considering the importance of the US’s role in Singapore’s nation-building, this book provides an important supplement to the well-trodden narrative that attributes Singapore’s success to good governance.Trade Review"Daniel Chua deftly guides the reader through the complexities and nuances of this emerging relationship and in so doing, sheds new light on Singapore’s relations with the U.S. during the former’s first decade of independence. [...] In addition, his study provides fascinating insights into the twists and turns of Singaporean foreign policy at a crucial juncture in Asia’s regional politics. [...] a solid work of international history which makes a welcome contribution to the growing literature on the role of small regional powers in the unfolding of the Cold War in Southeast Asia." — H-Diplo Roundtable Review, Vol. XX.5
£26.06
Oxford University Press, USA Atomic Obsession
Book SynopsisEver since the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the prospect of nuclear annihilation has haunted the modern world. But as John Mueller reveals in this eye-opening, compellingly argued, and very reassuring book, our obsession with nuclear weapons is unsupported by history, scientific fact, or logic. Examining the entire atomic era, Mueller boldly contends that nuclear weapons have had little impact on history. Although they have inspired overwrought policies and distorted spending priorities, for the most part they have proved to be militarily useless, and a key reason so few countries have taken them up is that they are a spectacular waste of money and scientific talent. Equally important, Atomic Obsession reveals why anxieties about terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons are essentially baseless: a host of practical and organizational difficulties make their likelihood of success almost vanishingly small.Mueller, one of America''s most distinguished yet provocative internationalTrade ReviewHis witty and unmerciful intellectual attack on the doomsayers, who have been arguing for the past 50 years that rapid proliferation is just around the corner, that we stand on the brink of a new nuclear age, or that it is a few minutes to midnight, is a refreshing one. * Survival *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; Part I. The Impact of Nuclear Weapons ; 1. Effects ; 2. Overstating the Effects ; 3. Deterring World War III: Essential Irrelevance ; 4. Influence on History ; 5. Influence on Rhetoric, Theorizing, and Budgets ; Part II. The Spread of Nuclear Weapons ; 6. Arms Races: Positive and Negative ; 7. Proliferation: Slow and Substantially Inconsequential ; 8. The Modest Appeal and Value of Nuclear Weapons ; 9. Controlling Proliferation ; 10. Assessing the Costs of the Proliferation Fixation ; 11. Reconsidering Proliferation Policy ; Part III. The Atomic Terrorist? ; 12. Task ; 13. Likelihood ; 14. Progress and Interest ; 15. Capacity
£26.99
Taylor & Francis A Cold War In The Soviet Bloc
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£135.00
Taylor & Francis Power And Persuasion
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£135.00
Taylor & Francis The Global Politics of Jazz in the Twentieth Century
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£135.00
Taylor & Francis Ltd The Art And Science Of Geography Us And Soviet Perspectives
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£39.99
Taylor & Francis European Socialist Regimes Fateful Engagement with the West National Strategies in the Long 1970s Cold War History
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£135.00
Taylor & Francis The Last Year of President Kennedy and the Multiple Path Policy Toward Cuba Routledge Studies in the History of the Americas
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£135.00
Taylor & Francis Ltd Cold War
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£35.99
Taylor & Francis Ltd Cold War
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£128.25
Taylor & Francis Ltd Translating Cuba
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£118.75
Taylor & Francis Ltd A History of Cold War Industrialisation
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£135.00
Taylor & Francis A Global Financial History of Oil Crises
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£145.00
Taylor & Francis Politics and the Slavic Languages
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£135.00
Taylor & Francis Politics and the Slavic Languages
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£37.99
Taylor & Francis The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£43.99
Taylor & Francis Ltd Soviet Science and Engineering in the Shadow of the Cold War
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£39.99
Taylor & Francis Romania under Communism
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£39.99
Taylor & Francis Ethnic Cleansing During the Cold War
Book SynopsisIn mid-1989, the Bulgarian communist regime seeking to prop up its legitimacy played the ethnonational card by expelling 360,000 Turks and Muslims across the Iron Curtain to neighboring Turkey. It was the single largest ethnic cleansing during the Cold War in Europe after the wrapping up of the postwar expulsions (âpopulation transfersâ) of ethnic Germans from Central Europe in the latter half of the 1940s. Furthermore, this expulsion of Turks and Muslims from Bulgaria was the sole unilateral act of ethnic cleansing that breached the Iron Curtain. The 1989 ethnic cleansing was followed by an unprecedented return of almost half of the expellees, after the collapse of the Bulgarian communist regime. The return, which partially reversed the effects of this ethnic cleansing, was the first-ever of its kind in history. Despite the unprecedented character of this 1989 expulsion and the subsequent return, not a single research article, let alone a monograph, has been devoted to these momentTrade Review"Kamusella shows the way for a future Bulgaria. The recognition of ethnic cleansing is important not only in terms of historical justice and responsibility but also for the future transformation of Bulgaria into a country attractive for immigrants" - Vasil Paraskevov, Konstantin Preslavsky University, Bulgaria, European History QuarterlyTable of ContentsContents; List of Figures; Foreword; Preface; List of Acronyms and Abbreviations, and of the Names of Parties and Organizations Mentioned; The Bulgarian Governments During and After the Removal of Todor Zhivkov from Office; The Heads of State of Bulgaria During and After the Removal of Todor Zhivkov from Office; Introduction; 1. On Forgetfulness and Its Perils; 2. The State of Research on the 1989 Expulsion; 3.The 1989 Ethnic Cleansing Through the Lens of the International Press; 4. The Ethnic Cleansing’s Aftermath and the Regime Change; 5. The Official Coming to Terms with the 1989 Ethnic Cleansing; 6. Between Language and Millet; 7. The Question of Responsibility; Conclusion; Postscriptum; Bibliography; Index
£39.99
Taylor & Francis Ltd The Institution of International Order
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£39.99
Taylor & Francis Ltd European Socialist Regimes Fateful Engagement with the West
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£39.99
Taylor & Francis Ltd The Johnson Administrations Cuba Policy
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£39.99
