Rise and Decline of the American Century

314 pages

English

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Rise and Decline of the American Century , livre ebook

Cornell University Press - Walker III William O.

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

314 pages

English

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

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 detente. 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.

Sujets

Cold War

International relations

History of the Americas

Informations

Publié par	Cornell University Press
Date de parution	15 octobre 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781501726149
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	5 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,7500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY

THERISEANDDECLINEOFTHE AMERICAN CENTURY

WilliàM O. WàlKER III

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESSAACLDNAHTIDOONN

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress .cornell.edu.

First published 2018 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Walker, William O., III, 1946author. Title: The rise and decline of the American century / William O. Walker III. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identiﬁers: LCCN 2017060538 (print) | LCCN 2017061793 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501726149 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501726156 (ret) | ISBN 9781501726132 | ISBN 9781501726132 (cloth ; alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: United States—Foreign relations—1945–1989. | National Security—United States—History—20th century. | Hegemony—United States—History—20th century. | Luce, Henry Robinson, 1898–1967. American century. Classiﬁcation: LCC E744 (ebook) | LCC E744 .W24 2018 (print) | DDC 327.73009/04—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017060538

In memory of Alexander DeConde, mentor, scholar, gentleman. For Sue, mi querida esposa, tqm.

Above all, the thrall in which an ideology holds a people is best measured by their collective inability to imagine alternatives. Tony Judt New York Review of Books, September 30, 2010

Contents

Preface List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Henry R. Luce and the Security Ethos

Par t 1RISE OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY THE 1. Pursuing Hegemony 2. Protecting the Free World 3. Seeking Order and Stability 4. Sustaining Leadership

Par t 2DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY THE 5. Bearing Burdens 6. Contending with Decline 7. Attaining Primacy

Conclusion: An Improbable Quest

Notes Index

ix xv

123

152

183

209

219 279

Preface

Imagine that a very large oil painting, a triptych, has recently been discovered. Each of the panels is badly soiled; still, the painting seems recognizable. It is oddly evocative of John Gast’s 1872 composition, the allegoricalAmerican Progress. Among the discernible images in the ﬁrst panel are Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin at Potsdam and John Foster Dulles refusing to shake Zhou Enlai’s hand at Geneva in 1954; in the second one, John Kennedy gives his inaugural address and Lyndon Johnson agonizes over Vietnam; a discarded placard proclaiming the “Year of Europe” and Richard Nixon boarding a helicopter on the White House lawn adorn the third panel. The painting has to be a rendition of the history of the Cold War through August 1974. Cleaning and restoration of the triptych reveal a much different story. In the lower left of the ﬁrst panel sits Henry Luce penning his essay “The American Century.”Visiblealongthelowerborderofeachpanelarecrowdsofyoungpeoplefrom various locales, some carrying signs of protest. Across the top reside sym bols of America’s vast material and cultural prowess: a television set, an automo bile, an airplane, a movie camera, a trumpet, and more. Present now in the ﬁrst panel are more people of color than were previously visible; in the second one, gold bars with wings ﬂy out from Fort Knox; the third panel also shows Japan’s copious export trade and Chile’s presidential palace, La Moneda, in ﬂames. What to make of this transformed canvas? It could simply be a more complete depiction of the highly familiar tale of the Cold War. Or is something else inﬂu encing the brushstrokes of our nameless artist? If context matters, then Luce’s presence holds the key. The refurbished images on the triptych should be seen as coming under its sway, their story still to be told. The germ of an idea for a book akin to this one originated, inchoately to be sure, in 1969 when I was an MA student at Ohio State University. Also at OSU then was the nowsuperb historian Melvyn P. Lefﬂer. Mel and I and a small num ber of others spent hours talking about American history, especially the origins of the Cold War, and we speculated endlessly about what the Cold War meant for understanding America’s place in the modern world. These latter discussions came to mind when I decided to write this book. The Rise and Decline of the American Centurydescribes and analyzes what I consider the active lifespan of the American Century as the noted publisher Henry R. Luce conceived it in 1941. Luce very much wanted the United States to

Univers
Ebooks
Livres audio
Presse
Podcasts
BD
Documents

Rise and Decline of the American Century , livre ebook

Cold War

International relations

History of the Americas

YouScribe

Le catalogue

Le service

Les conditions