Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"President Eisenhower's warning of a 'military-industrial complex' looms large in contemporary American politics. This book offers the crucial historical background to explain what Eisenhower meant. Grant Madsen shows how U.S. Army leaders after the Second World War worked to build a global economy hinged on low inflation, inexpensive capital, and free trade. He explains how this model seeded postwar prosperity at home as well as in Europe and Asia, and also how it unraveled in the 1960s and 1970s-a victim of its own successes. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the historical roots of our current global economy and its discontents." * Jeremi Suri, author of
The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office *
"
Sovereign Soldiers offers a lively account of economic policymaking in post-World War II Germany, Japan, and the United States. Drawing on original research, Grant Madsen describes the activities of top American occupation officials, including Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur as well as General Lucius D. Clay and Detroit banker Joseph Dodge. Charged with overseeing the reconstruction of postwar Germany and Japan, these overseas American officials developed a distinctive approach to political economy, which, as Madsen shows, had lasting influence-not only in Europe and Asia but also back in the United States." * Mark R. Wilson, author of
Destructive Creation: American Business and the Winning of World War II *
Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. When the Military Became an External State
Chapter 2. The War, the Economy, and the Army
Chapter 3. The Army in a Time of Depression
Chapter 4. The Army, the New Deal, and the Planning for the Postwar
Chapter 5. "The Thing Was Assembled by Economic Idiots"
Chapter 6. The Army Creates a Plan for Germany
Chapter 7. A German "Miracle"
Chapter 8. Political Progress in Japan—and Economic Decline
Chapter 9. "Recovery Without Fiction"
Chapter 10. Implementing the Lessons of Victory in Japan
Chapter 11. Truman and Eisenhower
Chapter 12. "The Great Equation"
Chapter 13. Protecting the Global Economy
Epilogue
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
