Search results for ""Author William O. Walker""

A history of drugs is a study of cultures in competition, argues editor William O. Walker III. Eminently adaptive, drug cultures have competed with proscriptive cultures to create a legitimate place for themselves, although one that the dominant society may recognize only tacitly. Professor Walker brings together forty-six essays that examine the complex negotiations and changing rhetoric revolving around issues of drugs and their control between the United States and its Latin American neighbors. Drugs in the Western Hemisphere is divided into six parts. Articles are arranged chronologically, offering the reader a compre-hensive overview of the evolution of U.S.-Latin American drug policy from the turn of the century to the Clinton administration. Part I, Cultures in Conflict suggests that clashes between members of drug cultures and proponents of drug control traditionally have occurred within the context of the forma-tion of the modern nation. Part II, Drugs in Latin America, 1920-1940 takes a closer look at inter-American policies revolving around drugs in the 1920s and 1940s. Part III, Wartime Experience and Part IV, Confrontation and Controversy examine how World War II both affected U.S.-Latin American drug policy and set the tone for many years to come. Part V, Drugs and Security and Part VI, Drugs in the Americas: An Assessment takes the reader through to the Clinton administration. Writers here note the concerted efforts of the United States to establish hegemony over drug control throughout the Western Hemisphere.

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In 1941 the magazine publishing titan Henry R. Luce urged the nation’s leaders to create an American Century. But in the post-World-War-II era proponents of the American Century faced a daunting task. Even so, Luce had articulated an animating idea that, as William O. Walker III skillfully shows in The Rise and Decline of the American Century, would guide United States foreign policy through the years of hot and cold war. The American Century was, Walker argues, the counter-balance to defensive war during World War II and the containment of communism during the Cold War. American policymakers pursued an aggressive agenda to extend U.S. influence around the globe through control of economic markets, reliance on nation-building, and, where necessary, provision of arms to allied forces. This positive program for the expansion of American power, Walker deftly demonstrates, came in for widespread criticism by the late 1950s. A changing world, epitomized by the nonaligned movement, challenged U.S. leadership and denigrated the market democracy at the heart of the ideal of the American Century. Walker analyzes the international crises and monetary troubles that further curtailed the reach of the American Century in the early 1960s and brought it to a halt by the end of that decade. By 1968, it seemed that all the United States had to offer to allies and non-hostile nations was convenient military might, nuclear deterrence, and the uncertainty of détente. Once the dust had fallen on Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency and Richard M. Nixon had taken office, what remained was, The Rise and Decline of the American Century shows, an adulterated, strategically-based version of Luce’s American Century.

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A history of drugs is a study of cultures in competition, argues editor William O. Walker III. Eminently adaptive, drug cultures have competed with proscriptive cultures to create a legitimate place for themselves, although one that the dominant society may recognize only tacitly. Professor Walker brings together forty-six essays that examine the complex negotiations and changing rhetoric revolving around issues of drugs and their control between the United States and its Latin American neighbors. Drugs in the Western Hemisphere is divided into six parts. Articles are arranged chronologically, offering the reader a compre-hensive overview of the evolution of U.S.-Latin American drug policy from the turn of the century to the Clinton administration. Part I, Cultures in Conflict suggests that clashes between members of drug cultures and proponents of drug control traditionally have occurred within the context of the forma-tion of the modern nation. Part II, Drugs in Latin America, 1920-1940 takes a closer look at inter-American policies revolving around drugs in the 1920s and 1940s. Part III, Wartime Experience and Part IV, Confrontation and Controversy examine how World War II both affected U.S.-Latin American drug policy and set the tone for many years to come. Part V, Drugs and Security and Part VI, Drugs in the Americas: An Assessment takes the reader through to the Clinton administration. Writers here note the concerted efforts of the United States to establish hegemony over drug control throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Read more less