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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945
Drawing on newly released government papers, John Gearson assesses the development of Harold Macmillan's foreign policy during the Berlin Wall Crisis. Tracing the bitter alliance disputes of the crisis, Dr Gearson shows how Macmillan's attempts to chart an independent course, crucially undermined his standing with his European partners and revealed his confused approach to European security. Berlin is placed at the centre of consideration of British foreign policy, making this book an important contribution to the historiography of the period.
This extensively researched empirical analysis of the GDR in the years 1971-1989 challenges current historical interpretations of GDR history. It focuses on four social groups-- youth, women, writers and Christians--to highlight the stability of this socialist society until 1987. The strength of the regime is shown to have been based on a continuously negotiated process of give-and-take involving major parts of the population.
In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb Army commanded by General Ratko Mladic attacked the enclave of Srebrenica, a UN "safe area" since 1993, and massacred about 8,000 Bosniac men. While the responsibility for the massacre itself lays clearly with the Serb political and military leadership, the question of the responsibility of various international organizations and national authorities for the fall of the enclave is still passionately discussed, and has given rise to various rumors and conspiracy theories. Follow-up investigations by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and by several commissions have dissipated most of these rumors and contributed to a better knowledge of the Srebrenica events and the part played by the main local and international actors. This volume represents the first systematic, comparative analysis of those investigations. It brings together analyses from both the external standpoint of academics and the inside perspective of various professionals who participated directly in the inquiries, including police officers, members of parliament, high-ranking civil servants, and other experts. Evaluating how institutions establish facts and ascribe responsibilities, this volume presents a historiographical and epistemological reflection on the very possibility of writing a history of the present time. Isabelle Delpla is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University Montpellier III. Her research focuses on international ethics and justice and the relationships between philosophy and anthropology. She has conducted fieldwork in Bosnia with victim associations, Hague witnesses, and convicted war criminals. Xavier Bougarel is Researcher at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. He is currently researching the wars of the 1990s and their aftermath in the former Yugoslavia and the transformations of Islam in the post-Communist Balkans. Jean-Louis Fournel is Professor at the University of Paris VIII. His research focuses on the history of warfare, political thought, and the rhetoric of the Italian Renaissance. Between 1997 and 2001, he directed several European cooperation programs with universities in Bosnia- Herzegovina. In 1994, while the city was under siege, he co-organized the initiative for a sister relationship between his university and that of Sarajevo.
How did France become embroiled in Vietnam, in the first of long wars of decolonization? And why did the French colonial administration, in late 1946, having negotiated with Ho Chi Minh for a year, adopt a warlike stance towards Ho's regime which ran counter to the liberal colonial doctrine of liberated France? Based on French archival sources, almost all of them previously unavailable to the English-speaking reader, the author assesses the policy that emerged from the 1944 Brazzaville conference; and the doomed attempt to apply that policy in Indo-China.
When the networks called the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden on Saturday, November 7, 2020, people from coast to coast exhaled--and danced in the streets. This quick-turnaround volume, a collection of 38 personal essays from writers all over the country--"many of America's most thoughtful voices," as Jon Meacham puts it--captures the week Trump was voted out, a unique juncture in American life, and helps point toward a way forward to a nation less divided. An eclectic lineup of contributors--from Rosanna Arquette, Susan Bro and General Wesley Clark to Keith Olbermann, Stewart O'Nan and Anthony Scaramucci--puts a year of transition into perspective, and summons the anxieties and hopes so many have for better times ahead. As award-winning columnist Mary C. Curtis writes in the lead essay, "Saying you're not interested in politics is dangerous because, like it or not, politics is interested in you." Novelist Christopher Buckley, a former speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, laments, "The Republican Senate, with one exception, has become a stay of ovine, lickspittle quislings, degenerate descendants of such giants as Everett Dirksen, Barry Goldwater, Howard Baker and John McCain." Nero Award-winning mystery novelist Stephen Mack Jones writes, to Donald Trump, "Remember: You live in my house. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is my house. My ancestors built it at a cost of blood, soul and labor. I pay my taxes every year to feed you, clothe you and your family and staff and fly you around the country and the world in my tricked-out private jet. If you violate any aspect of your four-year lease--any aspect--Lord Jesus so help me, I will do everything in my power to kick yo narrow ass to the curb." As Publisher Steve Kettmann writes in the Introduction: "The hope is that in putting out these glimpses so quickly, giving them an immediacy unusual in book publishing, we can help in the mourning for all that has been lost, help in the healing (of ourselves and of our country), and help in the pained effort, like moving limbs that have gone numb from inactivity, to give new life to our democracy. We stared into the abyss, tottered on the edge, and a record-setting surge of voting and activism delivered us from the very real threat of plunging into autocracy."
Almost a decade after the opening of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the GDR and the end of the Cold War, Germany has begun to cope with the political, economic, social and nationalistic challenges unification has posed to its institutions and way of life in both the western and eastern part of the once divided country. The books' nine authors, all experts in their field, analyse the way united Germany has tackled the many unforeseen problems and highlight Germany's slow adjustment to the new realities.;The emergence of a new economic, political and perhaps military superstate as feared by many in 1990 has not materialised. Instead, Germany today is only just coping with the domestic and external challenges of unification. The economic and social integration of the former East Germany may yet take another 10 to 15 years. This timely and well-researched book outlines the many challenges facing Germany and its European neighbours in the post-Cold War world.
The shocking assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 propelled the memory of the slain president to a revered status. Naturally enough, the public came to terms with the tragedy in Dallas by investing the chief executive's life with Lincolnesque significance--a moral importance transcending politics. Traditionally, historians have accentuated either the positive "Camelot" or the negative "counter-Camelot" view of JFK. Measured appreciation became adulation and criticism evolved into vilification. Bringing together leading Kennedy scholars with a group of younger historians, Mark J. White demonstrates that both versions of JFK are unsatisfying caricatures, lacking subtlety and nuance. Using recently declassified documents, Kennedy examines many of the key issues surrounding the president's time in the White House: Vietnam, the Cuban missile crisis, the Berlin issue, the space race, relations with de Gaulle, and trade policy. Rejecting the idolatry and bitterness evident in so many previous works on JFK, the volume presents a compelling reappraisal of the Kennedy presidency.
The eruption of Mount Pinatuba represented more than the smothering of America's Clark Air Force Base and many of President Corazon Aquino's development plans. It also served as a metaphor both for the collapse of Philippine-American base negotiations, presaging an end to nearly a century of strategic relations, and for Aquino's unsuccessful attempt to undo the colossal damage of the Marcos era and construct coherent development programmes. The story of the Aquino era is one of failing efforts to use the vast economic aid which poured into the country, and more successful efforts to put the lid on the communist insurgency in four-fifths of the nation's provinces. The reason for the success was that the unity of the security struggle went unmatched in the economic one, where it was every person for himself or herself. Even the presidential family had its fingers in the economic pie. This book explores the connections between two central functions of Third World governments - development and security - in an analysis of Corazon Aquino's six crisis-filled years as President of the Philippines. Information in the book is updated to reflect recent events, including the change of leaders
Although the end of the Cold War was greeted with great enthusiasm by people in the East and the West, the ensuing social and especially economic changes did not always result in the hoped-for improvements in people's lives. This led to widespread disillusionment that can be observed today all across Eastern Europe. Not simply a longing for security, stability, and prosperity, this nostalgia is also a sense of loss regarding a specific form of sociability. Even some of those who opposed communism express a desire to invest their new lives with renewed meaning and dignity. Among the younger generation, it surfaces as a tentative yet growing curiosity about the recent past. In this volume scholars from multiple disciplines explore the various fascinating aspects of this nostalgic turn by analyzing the impact of generational clusters, the rural-urban divide, gender differences, and political orientation. They argue persuasively that this nostalgia should not be seen as a wish to restore the past, as it has otherwise been understood, but instead it should be recognized as part of a more complex healing process and an attempt to come to terms both with the communist era as well as the new inequalities of the post-communist era.
An era that changed America forever is analyzed through the words of those who led, participated in, and opposed the protest movements that made the 1960s a signature epoch in U.S. culture. There is no better way to understand the 1960s than to read key speeches and texts from the decade, experiencing firsthand writings that capture a signature sense of passion and conviction. That is exactly the approach taken by this book as it analyzes major protest movements of the era, including the Vietnam War protests, the Civil Rights Movement, Women's Lib, the hippie movement, and the nascent GLBQT movement. Organized by movement, the work presents speeches, testimonies, and other important documents side-by-side with accessibly written, expert commentary. The documents and the themes they represent are linked to each other and to events during the decade to put the passionate thinking of the time in context and demonstrate its importance and legacy. By allowing readers to explore the 1960s in this visceral way, the book will provide an engaging learning experience for secondary school and university students, who will also gain helpful insights on how to evaluate historical documents. For the same reason, the volume will be a welcome resource for the general reader interested in understanding-or recalling-why the 1960s produced so many lasting changes in the American psyche. Opens a window on a revolutionary time when Americans stood up and demanded peace and tolerance Highlights the expectations of free speech and equal treatment for all Americans and shows how those expectations were translated into actions Includes background discussion of the 1960s and background discussion of each document Compares and contrasts key passages, encouraging the reader to cross-reference documents within the volume and connect the dots between them Examines exhibits as varied as Abbie Hoffman's testimony at the trial of the Chicago 7, Noam Chomsky's essay "The Function of a University in Time of Crisis," the Port Huron speech of the Students for a Democratic Society, Richard Nixon's Silent Majority speech, and Shirley Chisholm's Equal Rights for Women speech
Situating Gorbachev and perestroika historically and ideologically, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of Soviet political economy in the context of socialist theory and seven decades of its application in the Soviet Union. A. F. Dowlah challenges the belief that socialism is sternly committed to centralized economic and political structures, and claims that socialism contains several theories, some more decentralized or democratic, others more authoritarian. Although the contemporary crisis in the socialist economies powerfully challenges the foundations of socialist theory and practice, Gorbachev, up until the coup attempt of August 1991, claimed that perestoika embodied more socialism, not less, and he was looking within the socialist tradition to solve contemporary Soviet problems. This work examines Gorbachev's claim and evaluates perestroika as a strategy of transition to a new variant of socialism. Based on thorough inquiry, textual evidence, and historical facts, the study concludes that Gorbachev's claims are substantially legitimate, and that a democratic version of socialism is possible within the Russian socialist tradition. It remains to be seen, however, in light of recent political and economic developments, whether this, or some more radical set of reforms, will emerge in Gorbachev's troubled economy.
"The Geopolitics of the Cold War and Narratives of Inclusion" develops alternative accounts of feminist field formation, contrasting the explanatory possibilities of approaches drawn from the history of ideas, the sociology of knowledge, and Foucauldian archaeology. These accounts illuminate intricate and unexpected connections between a prominent feminist journal and geopolitical forces, such as the Cold War, increased federal funding for higher education, changing priorities within philanthropic foundations, and the emergence of development studies and subfields such as Women in Development. By complicating the history of academic feminism, the book offers new insights into the contours of transnational feminist scholarship in relation to key concepts advanced by U.S. scholars of color.
Drawing on recently released documents and private papers, this is the first book-length study to examine the intimate relationship between the Attlee government and Britain's intelligence and security services at the start of the Cold War. Often praised for the formation of the modern-day 'welfare state', Attlee's government also played a significant, if little understood, role in combating communism at home and overseas, often in the face of vocal, sustained opposition from its own backbenches. This book tells the story of Attlee's Cold War. From Whitehall vetting to secret operations in Eastern Europe and the fallout of Soviet atomic espionage on both sides of the Atlantic, it provides a fresh interpretation of the Attlee government, making it essential reading for anyone interested in the Labour Party, intelligence, security and Britain's foreign and defence policy at the start of the Cold War. -- .
Based on a wide range of archival sources, this book analyses the response of the most peripheral country in Western Europe, Franco's Spain, to the challenges of increasing economic interdependence from the end of World War II to the establishment of the EEC, 1945-57. In so doing, the author sheds new light on the fundamental question of the survival of the Franco regime and stimulates further discussion on the external factors responsible for Spain's pattern of economic growth after 1945.
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. President Clinton's time in office coincided with historic global events following the end of the Cold War. The collapse of Communism called for a new US Grand Strategy to address the emerging geopolitical era that brought upheavals in Somalia and the Balkans, economic challenges in Mexico and Europe and the emergence of new entities such as the EU, NAFTA and the WTO. Clinton's handling of these events was crucial to the development of world politics at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Only by understanding Clinton's efforts to address the challenges of the post-Cold War era can we understand the strategies of his immediate successors, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, both of whom inherited and continued Clinton-era policies and practices. James D. Boys sheds new light on the evolution and execution of US Grand Strategy from 1993 to 2001. He explores the manner in which policy was devised and examines the actors responsible for its development, including Bill Clinton, Anthony Lake, Samuel Berger, Warren Christopher, Madeline Albright and Richard Holbrook. He examines the core components of the strategy (National Security, Prosperity Promotion and Democracy Promotion) and how they were implemented, revealing a hitherto unexplored continuity from campaign trail to the White House. Covering the entire duration of Clinton's presidential odyssey, from his 1991 Announcement Speech to his final day in office, the book draws extensively on newly declassified primary materials and interviews by the author with key members of the Clinton administration to reveal for the first time the development and implementation of US Grand Strategy from deep within the West Wing of the Clinton White House.
This updated 2017 edition covers the latest events in Syria, Turkey and Iraq. The approximately 30 million or more Kurds famously constitute the largest nation in the world without its own independent state. The desire of many Kurds for independence, or at least cultural and even political autonomy, has led to an almost continuous series of Kurdish revolts. The resulting situation constitutes the Kurdish problem or question. Calling on more than 30 years of studying the Kurdish issue, numerous trips to the region, and many contacts among the Kurds, including almost all of their main leaders, Michael Gunter has written a short, but thorough history of the Kurds that is well documented, but still proves very readable. His narrative also includes numerous interesting personal experiences that will further explain these people who are for the most part moderate Muslims in favour of gender equality and are also wildly pro-American.
This volume is part of a series of annotated bibliographies on early American history, including North America and the Caribbean, from 1492 to 1815. It includes monographs, reference works, exhibition catalogues, and essay collections published between 1951 and 1960, which were reviewed in at least one of thirty-four historical journals. Each entry gives the name of the book, its author(s) or editor(s), publisher, date of publication, OCLC number(s), the Library of Congress call number, the Dewey class number, the number of times the book has been cited in the journal literature, and the number of OCLC member libraries that held the item as of August 2005. Following each detailed citation is a brief summary of the book and a list of journals in which the book has been reviewed. This volume contains chapters on general early American history, historiography and public history, geography and exploration, colonization, maritime history, Native Americans, race and slavery, gender, ethnicity, migration, labor and class, economics and business, society, families and children, rural life and agriculture, urban life, religion, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Constitution, politics and government, law, crime and punishment, diplomacy, military, ideas, literature, communication, education, science and medicine, visual arts and material culture, and performing arts. This volume is part of a series of annotated bibliographies on early American history, including North America and the Caribbean, from 1492 to 1815. It includes monographs, reference works, exhibition catalogues, and essay collections published between 1951 and 1960, which were reviewed in at least one of thirty-four historical journals. Each entry gives the name of the book, its author(s) or editor(s), publisher, date of publication, OCLC number(s), the Library of Congress call number, the Dewey class number, the number of times the book has been cited in the journal literature, and the number of OCLC member libraries that held the item as of August 2005. Following each detailed citation is a brief summary of the book and a list of journals in which the book has been reviewed. This volume contains chapters on general early American history, historiography and public history, geography and exploration, colonization, maritime history, Native Americans, race and slavery, gender, ethnicity, migration, labor and class, economics and business, society, families and children, rural life and agriculture, urban life, religion, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Constitution, politics and government, law, crime and punishment, diplomacy, military, ideas, literature, communication, education, science and medicine, visual arts and material culture, and performing arts. Through this volume, Irwin aims to make scholars, teachers, and students of early American history aware of books written in the field between 1951 and 1960. He offers descriptions and location aids for those works, and he directs users to reviews of the books. He also suggests which works in the field have had significant scholarly impact. This volume may boast extensive indexes by subject and author, thematic chapters, book summaries that cover subject matter, scope and, often, argument and approach, and OCLC accession numbers to aid in edition identification and book location.
The end of Japan's empire appeared to happen very suddenly and cleanly - but, as this book shows, it was in fact very messy, with a long period of establishing or re-establishing the postwar order. Moreover, as the authors argue, empires have afterlives, which, in the case of Japan's empire, is not much studied. This book considers the details of deimperialization, including the repatriation of Japanese personnel, the redrawing of boundaries, issues to do with prisoners of war and war criminals and new arrangements for democratic political institutions, for media and for the regulation of trade. It also discusses the continuing impact of empire on the countries ruled or occupied by Japan, where, as a result of Japanese management and administration, both formal and informal, patterns of behavior and attitudes were established that continued subsequently. This was true in Japan itself, where returning imperial personnel had to be absorbed and adjustments made to imperial thinking, and in present-day East Asia, where the shadow of Japan's empire still lingers. This legacy of unresolved issues concerning the correct relationship of Japan, an important, energetic, outgoing nation and a potential regional "hub," with the rest of the region not comfortably settled in this era, remains a fulcrum of regional dispute.
This book explores representations of the domestic in Irish women's magazines. Published in 1960s Ireland, during a period of transformation, they served as modern manuals for navigating everyday life. Traditional themes - dating, marriage, and motherhood - dominated. But editors also introduced conflicting voices to complicate the narrative. Readers were prompted to reimagine their home life, and traditional values were carefully subverted. The domestic was shown to be a negotiable concept in the coverage of such issues as the body and reproductive rights, working wives and equal pay. Dominant societal perceptions of women were also challenged through the inclusion of those who were on the margins - widows, unmarried mothers, and never-married women. This book considers the motivations of editors, the role of readers, and the influence of advertisers in shaping complex debates about women in society in 1960s Ireland. -- .
Peacekeeping operations have become a central issue in international relations since the end of the Cold War. Russian peacekeeping operations in the conflicts in the former Soviet Union have raised significant controversy in the West, but little systematic attention. This study examines the evolution of Russian policy towards these conflicts on its periphery. This work underlines the mixture of defensive and offensive stimuli driving Russian peacekeeping strategies, and highlights the dangers that the new Russian Federation faces in undertaking these operations.
The first account of the secret police in Eastern Europe after 1989, this book uses a wide range of sources, including archives, to identify what has and has not changed since the end of Communism. After explaining the structure and workings of two of the area's most feared services, Czechoslovakia's StB and Romania's Securitate, the authors detail the creation of new security intelligence institutions, the development of contacts with the West, and forms of democratic control.
As 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 for all time"). This book is a fascinating look at the outsized impact that one individual had on the course of American public debate, international humanitarianism, and the Cold War itself. This biography of the vocal anti-communist and anti-nuclear activist's public life will interest readers across the ideological spectrum.
This collection of essays focuses Britain's role in global affairs since the Second World War. The essays cover a broad field, from relations with Japan and China, through European and African developments, to defence planning in Whitehall. They include also political, economic, defence, ideological and religious dimensions and, even, 'futurology'. The essays in the collection offer fresh insights and new interpretations of the way in which a weakened Britain conducted its foreign policy in order to protect its interests and retain influence in international affairs. The book presents readers with wide-ranging perspectives on Britain and the World in the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, based on the latest available evidence. This collection of essays, along with the accompanying volume covering the period from Gladstone to Churchill, is published in memory of Saki Dockrill.
From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s West German foreign policy underwent substantial transformations: from bilateral to multilateral, from reactive to proactive. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was an ideal setting for this evolution, enabling the Federal Republic to take the lead early on in Western preparations for the conference and to play a decisive role in the actual East-West negotiations leading to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. Based on extensive original research of recently released documents, spanning more than fifteen archives in eight countries, this study is a substantial contribution to scholarly discussions on the history of detente, the CSCE and West German foreign policy. The author stresses the importance of looking beyond the bipolarity of the Cold War decades and emphasizes the interconnectedness of European integration and European detente. He highlights the need to place the genesis of the CSCE conference in its historical context rather than looking at it through the prism of the events of 1989, and shows that the bilateral and multilateral elements (Ostpolitik and the CSCE) were parallel rather than successive phenomena, parts of the same complex process and in constant interaction with each other. |
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