In this eye-opening companion to Netflix's acclaimed series The Crown, renowned biographer and the show's historical consultant, Robert Lacey takes us through the real history that inspired the drama. Covering two tumultuous decades in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, Lacey looks at the key social, political and personal moments and their effects - not only on the royal family, but also on the world around them. From the Suez Canal Crisis and the US/Russia space race to the legacy of the Duke of Windsor's collaboration with Hitler, along with the rumoured issues with the royal marriage, The Crown provides a thought-provoking insight into the historic decades that the show covers, revealing the truth behind the on-screen drama. Extensively researched and complete with beautifully reproduced photographs, this is a unique look behind the history that inspired the show and the years that would prove to be the making of the Queen.

The period from 1945 to the present day may not constitute an American century, but it can be seen as the American Moment: the time when, for good or ill, the United States became the predominant political, military, economic and cultural power in the world. This revised and updated new edition introduces the historic and tumultuous developments in American politics, foreign policy, society and culture during this period. It includes coverage of key recent events, such as the: - 2008 election of Barack Obama - global recession - protracted war in Iraq and Afghanistan - rise of the internet - transformation of American Society and Culture - challenges of new immigration and multi-culturalism - changing global status of the US in the new millennium. Examining the American Moment in a global context, the authors emphasise the interaction between politics, society and culture. America Since 1945 encourages an awareness of how central currents in art, literature, film, theatre, intellectual history and media have developed alongside an understanding of political, economic and social change.

Orford Ness was, for most of the twentieth century, a military research station so secret that nobody knew what went on there, and so remote that even now most people have never heard of it. Yet the contribution of its scientists, service and civilian, to the winning of the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War places them on a par with the codebreakers of Bletchley Park. At this highly atmospheric and often inhospitable location on the Suffolk coast, the Royal Flying Corps (later RAF) conducted crucial experiments and trials, some brilliant, others futile, on effective gunnery, accurate bombing and improved navigational aids. It was the venue for Watson Watt's early work on radar and for Barnes Wallis' improved Tallboy bomb. From 1953, the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment used it as the testing range for British nuclear bombs. In 1967 the world's most powerful radar station, COBRA MIST, was constructed for the US Department of Defense. Why it was closed down is just one of many Orford Ness mysteries. Owned by the National Trust since 1993, Orford Ness is a National Nature Reserve of international significance. But its military history has proved no less important and its secrets highly intriguing. This book tells an incredible tale of ingenious, talented and brave men - and women - who operated with typically British patience and resourcefulness in often highly uncomfortable and, on occasions, fatal circumstances.

Provides a counter history to conventional accounts of American art. Close historical examinations of particular events in Los Angeles and New York in the 1960s are interwoven with discussion of the location of these events, normally marginalized or overlooked, in the history of cultural politics in the United States during the postwar era. Contradictions both within dissident art practices and the mainstream avant-garde are explored. So, too, are the significance of cultural institutions in relation to the production of art, the function of cultural canons within national politics, the construction of collective memories, and the ways in which culture is embedded in ideology and politics. The book is based on detailed and new research from a range of sources including the alternative press, such as the Los Angeles Free Press; public and private archives; interviews and oral histories.

The United States and the Republic of Korea have managed to forge a strong working relationship both in wartime and in peacetime, despite an inequality in power between them, through fulfillment of their respective responsibilities. Chay explores how Korean and American actions and inaction affected relations between the two and within the international context of the Korean War. He focuses on how and why war might have been avoided or resolved differently as a result of poor choices and missed opportunities. Using Korean sources, as well as Chinese and Russian materials, this study provides valuable new insights into the relationship between these two unequal powers.

The course of the Korean War swung like a pendulum powered by two outside interventions: that of the United States, made largely due to the symbolic value of Korea; and that of China, an action taken mainly for security reasons. Chay identifies key actions, including the division of Korea along the 38th Parallel, the 1949 troop withdrawal, and the failure to build an adequate military and economic deterrent in the South, as events that, had they not occurred, might have influenced the final outcome of the conflict. Restraint on the part of the United States and China and the role of the Korean peninsula as a geographic buffer zone ultimately prevented either side from gaining control of the entire peninsula, resulting in a stalemate. While issues of relative strength and weakness hindered U.S.-Korean cooperation after the end of the Second World War, once war came to the region the two powers built a successful partnership that addressed the national interests of both parties.

Shunsuke Tsurumi, one of Japan's most distinguished contemporary philosophers, continues his study of the intellectual and social history of modern Japan with this penetrating analysis of popular culture in the post-war years. Japanese manga (comics), manzai (dialogues), television, advertising and popular songs are the medium for a revealing examination of the many contradictory forces at work beneath the surface of an apparently uniform and universal culture. The author argues that the iconography of these popular forms has deep and significant implication for the development of Japanese national life in the post-growth years that lie ahead.

Japan's economic success since the 1950s created a range of serious domestic and international problems which threaten the stability of the country. Within Japan at the start of the 1980s there was a strong mood on the right for remilitarization to give the nation the super-power status her economic performance justified. Outside Japan, there was increasing pressure from the West to make her conform to Western strategic interests. Against the background of these crucial issues the book analyzes the economic, political and military options open to Japan. Focussing on the interconnecting themes of foreign harassment and domestic economic disorder, the author points out many areas of similarity between Japan of the 1930s and Japan of the 1980s.

"A judicious and cogent vindication of Eisenhower's prudent and moderate conduct of statecraft during his two terms."--Stephen J. Whitfield, Brandeis University

The European Union faces a crossroads in the twenty-first century. While there is evidence of declining enthusiasm for European integration, the EU plays an increasingly vital role in tackling problems that can no longer be dealt with at member state level. In recent years, the EU has developed a stronger foreign, security and defence policy, and has had to face up to the challenges of tackling organised crime, human trafficking and drug smuggling. In this fully updated new edition, Alasdair Blair examines the economic, political, social and personal factors that have shaped the process of European integration from the end of the Second World War until the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. Written in a clear and jargon-free style, the book explores: The context of European integration and expansion The relations between the European Union and its member states The institutional evolution of the European Union Methods of decision-making Key policies of the European Union The future direction of the European Union Comprehensive and accessible, this book is an essential guide to understanding the relevance of the European Union in the twenty-first century.

The growing internationalization of the world poses a fundamental question, i.e., through what mechanisms does culture diffuse across political boundaries and what is the role of politics in shaping this diffusion? This volume offers some answers through the case study of the relationship between two quite different states during the Cold War era - Austria, a small neutral country, and the United States, the reigning superpower. The authors challenge naive notions of cultural diffusion that posit the submission of small "peripheral" areas to the dictates of hegemonic powers at the "core." "Americanization" has no doubt taken place since 1945; however, local forces crucially shaped this process, and Austrian elites enjoyed considerable leeway in pursuing "Austrian" political objectives. On the other hand, with the expulsion of Vienna's cultural and intellectual elite after the Anschluss, the United States, more than any othercountry, became heir to the rich cultural legacy of "Vienna 1900," which profoundly shaped politics and culture in both its "high" and popular forms in postwar America. The relationship climaxed and came full circle with the unfolding of the Waldheim affair, which forced Americans and Austrians to reinterpret the meaning of the Nazi era for their own history in a confrontation with the "other."

Tailored to the 2008 A Level specification and packed full of exam tips and activities, Edexcel GCE History enables students to develop all the historical skills and understanding they need for success.

This book examines the role of the UN in conflict resolution in Africa in the 1960s and its relation to the Cold War.

Focussing on the Congo, this book shows how the preservation of the existing economic and social order in the Congo was a key element in the decolonisation process and the fighting of the Cold War. It links the international aspects of British, Belgian, Angolan and Central African Federation involvement with the roles of the US and UN in order to understand how supplies to and profits from the Congo were producing growing African problems. This large Central African country played a vital, if not fully understood role, in the Cold War and proved to be a fascinating example of complex African problems of decolonisation interacting with international forces, in ways that revealed a great deal about the problems inherent in colonialism and its end.

This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign policy, the UN, Cold War history and international history in general.

Did America's departure from Vietnam produce the "peace with honor" promised by President Richard Nixon or was that simply an empty wish meant to distract war-weary Americans from a tragic "defeat with shame"? While James Willbanks doesn't offer any easy answers to that question, his book convincingly shows why America's strategy for exiting the Vietnam War failed miserably and left South Vietnam to a dismal fate.

That strategy, "Vietnamization," was designed to transfer full responsibility for the defense of South Vietnam to the South Vietnamese, but in a way that would buy the United States enough time to get out without appearing to run away. To achieve this goal, America poured millions of dollars into training and equipping the South Vietnamese military while attempting to pacify the countryside. Precisely how this strategy was implemented and why it failed so completely are the subjects of this eye-opening study.

Drawing upon both archival research and his own military experiences in Vietnam, Willbanks focuses on military operations from 1969 through 1975. He begins by analyzing the events that led to a change in U.S. strategy in 1969 and the subsequent initiation of Vietnamization. He then critiques the implementation of that policy and the combat performance of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN), which finally collapsed in 1975.

Willbanks contends that Vietnamization was a potentially viable plan that was begun years too late. Nevertheless some progress was made and the South Vietnamese, with the aid of U.S. advisers and American airpower, held off the North Vietnamese during their massive offensive in 1972. However, the Paris Peace Accords, which left NVA troops in the south, and the subsequent loss of U.S. military aid negated any gains produced through Vietnamization. These factors coupled with corruption throughout President Thieu's government and a glaring lack of senior military leadership within the South Vietnamese armed forces ultimately led to the demise of South Vietnam.

A mere two years after the last American combat troops had departed, North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, overwhelming a poorly trained, disastrously led, and corrupt South Vietnamese military. But those two years had provided Nixon with the "decent interval" he desperately needed to proclaim that "peace with honor" had been achieved. Willbanks digs beneath that illusion to reveal the real story of South Vietnam's fall.

Publication of this complete edition of The Movement is an important contribution to popular understanding of the social movements of the 1960s. No other periodical provided such extensive coverage of the transformation of the civil rights movement into the diverse radical movements of the late 1960s. Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Huey Newton are among the many black militant leaders who are discussed in The Movement. Its insightful and sympathetic coverage, including participants' accounts, of a wide range of community organizing activities such as anti-war/anti-draft protests and Cesar Chavez's National Farm Workers Association and grape workers' strike in Delano, California. It covers national and international events, with articles on revolutionary movements in Cuba, Vietnam, and Africa. It is an excellent source of information regarding the social change activities of the late 1960s. As such, it is invaluable to students of the New Left, contemporary race relations, African-American history and Black Studies.

Yevgeni Vladimirovich Brik and James Douglas Finley Morrison were central figures in what was considered one of the most important Cold War operations in the West at the time. Their story, which involves espionage, intelligence tradecraft, intelligence service penetrations, double agent scenarios, and betrayal, is a piece of Cold War intelligence history that has never been fully told. Yevgeni Brik was a KGB deep cover illegal who had been dispatched to Canada in 1951. He settled in Verdun, Quebec. He eventually became the KGB Illegal Resident where he had responsibility for running a number of agents, one of whom was working on the CF-105, Avro Arrow. In 1953, he fell in love with a married Canadian woman to whom he revealed his true identity. She persuaded him to turn himself in, which resulted in his becoming a double agent, working for Canada. He was later betrayed by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer, James Morrison, who sought money from the KGB to pay his debts. Brik was consequently lured back to Moscow in 1955, where he was arrested, and interrogated. Convicted of treason, a traitor's fate awaited him, predictable, grim and final. Incredibly, he reappeared at a British Embassy as an old man in 1992, seeking Canada's help. He was exfiltrated by a joint Canadian / British intelligence team which was headed by Donald Mahar. He was debriefed by Mahar for several months when they returned to Canada.

Making use of newly-researched archival materials, this collection of original essays on wartime and post-war US foreign policy re-evaluates well-known crises and documents many less familiar aspects of the nation's mid-twentieth century conflicts. Leading diplomatic historians address familiar subjects from new angles. They offer new evidence about the risks run and the costs incurred in the prosecution of the Cold War, from Korea to the Caribbean. And they provide an up-to-date accounting of mid-twentieth century American diplomacy's global purposes and consequences.

In this comprehensive study, Gat looks at British policy in the period leading up to the Six-Day War. Although Britain holds center stage in this account, the study discusses in some detail American policy and its effect on the Arab-Israeli conflict. It also focuses on the Middle East water dispute, its impact on future events, and eventually the outbreak of war in 1967. This is a fascinating look at the process by which the Middle East became yet another Cold War playground.

To date, most scholars on the Arab-Israeli conflict have focused on the events of the Six-Day War, rather than on the tumultuous years prior to the war. Gat is the first to examine this turbulent yet decisive chapter in the history of the Middle East within the context of the Cold War, while making extensive use of British, American, and Israeli archives.

This book examines proclivity to genocide in the protracted killings that have continued for decades in the northern Nigeria ethno-religious conflict, spanning from the 1966 northern Nigeria massacres of thousands of Ibos up to the present, ongoing killings between extremist Muslims and Christians or non-Muslims in the region. It explores the ethnic and religious dimensions of the conflict over five phases to investigate genocidal proclivity to the killings and the extent to which religion foments and escalates the conflict. This book adopts a conceptual analytic approach of establishing similarity of genocidal patterns to the northern Nigeria ethno-religious conflict by examining genocidal occurrences and massacres in history, particularly the twentieth-century contemporary genocides, for an understanding of genocide. With this reference frame, the study structures a Genocide Proclivity Model for identifying inclinations to genocide and derives a substantive theory using the Strauss and Corbin (1990) approach. By identifying genocidal intent as underlying the various manifestations and causes of genocide in specific genocide cases, the book establishes that genocidal proclivity or the intent to exterminate the "other" on the basis of religion and/or ethnicity underlies most of the northern Nigerian episodic, but protracted, killings. The book's analytic framework and approach are grounded in identifiable and provable evidences of specific intent to annihilate the "other," mostly involving extremist Muslims intent to 'cleanse' northern Nigeria of Christians and other non-Muslims through the 'exclusionary ideology' of imposition of the Sharia Law, and to 'force assimilation' or 'extermination' through massacres and genocidal killings of those who refuse to assimilate or adopt the Muslim ideology. The study establishes that the genocidal inclinations to the conflict have remained latent because of the intermittent but protracted nature of the killings and lends credence to the conception of genocidal intent and its covertness in situations of genocidal intermittency. The book unearths the latency of episodic genocide in the northern Nigeria ethno-religious conflict, prescribes recommendations, and launches a clarion call for international intervention to stop the genocide.

The rise of Japan as an economic superpower is a remarkable episode in the history of the modern world. This book seeks to explain this phenomenal success by looking at the issues of culture and technology, and making comparison with the experience of the USA, the UK, and Europe as a whole. The relationship between culture and technology lies at the heart of the undoubted market success of Japan, and the development of high technology and the much-lauded "cultural" attributes of Japan have contributed powerfully to national success. These vital issues are examined in detail and include, for example, the relationship between company "culture" and "structure", and the overriding impact of Japanese "national" culture. National cultures in Japan and the West are compared with the consequent effect on entrepreneurial and technological progress.

Describing the fate of South Africa's drive, which began in 1949, to associate itself with Britain, France, Portugal and Belgium in an African defence pact, this book describes how South Africa had to settle for an entente rather than an alliance, and how even this had been greatly emasculated by 1960. In light of this case, the book considers the argument that ententes have the advantages of alliances without their disadvantages and concludes that this is exaggerated. There is also discussion of the background to the "fourth" secret Simonstown Agreement. Other books by the author include "The Politics of the South Africa Run: European Shipping and Pretoria", "Return to the UN" and "International Politics".

In early 2005 regional protests in Kyrgyzstan soon became national ones as protesters seized control of the countrya (TM)s capital, Bishkek. The countrya (TM)s president for fifteen years, Askar Akaev, fled the country and after a night of extensive looting, a new president, Kurmanbek Bakiev, came to power. The events quickly earned the epithet a ~Tulip Revolutiona (TM) and were interpreted as the third of the colour revolutions in the post-Soviet space, following Ukraine and Georgia. But did the events in Kyrgyzstan amount to a a ~revolutiona (TM)? How much change followed and with what academic and policy implications? This innovative, unique study of these events brings together a new generation of Kyrgyz scholars together with established international observers to assess what happened in Kyrgyzstan and after, and the wider implications.

This book was published as a special issue of Central Asian Survey.