Description
Book SynopsisAs the editor of the Saturday Review for more than thirty years, Norman Cousins had a powerful platform from which to help shape American public debate during the height of the Cold War. Under Cousins's leadership, the magazine was considered one of the most influential in the literary world. Cousins's progressive, nonpartisan editorials in the Review earned him the respect of the public and US government officials. But his deep impact on postwar international humanitarian aid, anti-nuclear advocacy, and Cold War diplomacy has been largely unexplored. In this book, Allen Pietrobon presents the first true biography of Norman Cousins. Cousins was much more important than we realize: he was involved in several secret citizen diplomacy missions during the height of the Cold War and, acting as a private citizen, played a major role in getting the Limited Test Ban Treaty signed. He also wrote JFK's famous 1963 American University commencement speech (not merely peace in our time but peace fo
Trade ReviewThis eye-opening biography is a primer for the lost art of gentle statecraft.
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Wall Street JournalNorman Cousins: Peacemaker in the Atomic Age will not only be of keen interest to readers seeking to know more about Cousins's career, or those looking for additional insight and perspective into some of the most important moments of the Cold War, but it may also spark important conversations about processes of social and political change today.
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Diplomatic HistoryAs a sympathetic biographer, Pietrobon does a good job of describing how Cousins's combination of deep moral convictions and political pragmatism managed to make such an impact.
—Lawrence Freedman,
Foreign AffairsAllen Pietrobon's
Norman Cousins: Peacemaker in the Atomic Age casts new and important light on one of the most significant movers and shakers in the modern American peace movement. It is an important addition to historical understanding of peace activism and its intersection with public policy during the Cold War.
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Peace and ChangeNorman Cousins: Peacemaker in the Atomic Age by scholar Allen Pietrobon confirms the immensity of his humanitarian spirit and influence as a self-appointed secular anti-nuclear prophet
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The ForwardTable of ContentsPrologue
Introduction
Chapter 1. Educator for an Atomic Age
Chapter 2. The Formation of a Vision
Chapter 3. World War II
Chapter 4. An Anti-Nuclear Crusade
Chapter 5. 1946: A New Year in the Atomic Age
Chapter 6. Witness to a Catastrophe
Chapter 7. An Educational Field Trip to Germany
Chapter 8. From Editor's Desk to World Stage
Chapter 9. In Search of Peace, Cousins Rallies for War
Chapter 10. Candidate of the Intellectuals: Adlai Stevenson, 1952
Chapter 11. From Advocate to Diplomat
Chapter 12. Eisenhower's New Look
Chapter 13. A New Project
Chapter 14. The Hiroshima Maidens
Chapter 15. The Anti-Nuclear Agenda
Chapter 16. 1956: The Anti-Nuclear Election Campaign
Chapter 17. SANE and the Anti-Testing Campaign
Chapter 18. The Ravensbrück Lapins and the Communist Connection
Chapter 19. A Cultural Exchange of His Own
Chapter 20. The Dawn of the Kennedy Administration
Chapter 21. Flashpoints: Berlin and the Congo
Chapter 22. Cousins, the Vatican, and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Chapter 23. The Crisis Abates but Contacts Continue
Chapter 24. The Breakthrough to the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
Chapter 25. A Sojourn with Khrushchev
Chapter 26. The Fight to Ratify
Chapter 27. 1964: Near Death and Rebirth
Chapter 28. Crusade against Dirty Air
Chapter 29. Days of Apprehension and Confusion
Chapter 30. The "Humphrey Mission"
Chapter 31. The Scramble to Prevent a Bombing
Chapter 32. Campaigning against (and during) a War
Chapter 33. The Biafran War
Chapter 34. The Saturday Review's Final Crisis
Chapter 35. The Third Act
Conclusion
Notes
Index
