International sporting events, including the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, have experienced profound growth in popularity and significance since the mid-twentieth century. Sports often facilitate diplomacy, revealing common interests across borders and uniting groups of people who are otherwise divided by history, ethnicity, or politics. In many countries, popular athletes have become diplomatic envoys. Sport is an arena in which international conflict and compromise find expression, yet the impact of sports on foreign relations has not been widely studied by scholars. In Diplomatic Games, a team of international scholars examines how the nexus of sport and foreign relations has driven political and cultural change since 1945, demonstrating how governments have used athletic competition to maintain and strengthen alliances, promote policies, and increase national prestige. The contributors investigate topics such as China's use of sports to oppose Western imperialism, the ways in which sports helped bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, and the impact of the United States' 1980 Olympic boycott on U.S.-Soviet relations. Bringing together innovative scholarship from around the globe, this groundbreaking collection makes a compelling case for the use of sport as a lens through which to view international relations.

This book explores how and why Vietnam loomed so large for Humphrey as vice president from 1964 through the 1968 election campaign against Richard Nixon. It assesses how Humphrey's loyalty to Lyndon Johnson, who emerges as the villain of the story in many ways, would negatively affect his political ambitions. And it engages the disconnect between Humphrey's principles and the intricate politics of his convoluted relationship with the president and his unsuccessful presidential campaign. It is a complex and frustrating narrative, the results of which would be tragic, not only for Humphrey's presidential aspirations, but also for the war in Southeast Asia and the future of the United States.

International sporting events, including the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, have experienced profound growth in popularity and significance since the mid-twentieth century. Sports often facilitate diplomacy, revealing common interests across borders and uniting groups of people who are otherwise divided by history, ethnicity, or politics. In many countries, popular athletes have become diplomatic envoys. Sport is an arena in which international conflict and compromise find expression, yet the impact of sports on foreign relations has not been widely studied by scholars.

In Diplomatic Games, a team of international scholars examines how the nexus of sport and foreign relations has driven political and cultural change since 1945, demonstrating how governments have used athletic competition to maintain and strengthen alliances, promote policies, and increase national prestige. The contributors investigate topics such as China's use of sports to oppose Western imperialism, the ways in which sports helped bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, and the impact of the United States' 1980 Olympic boycott on U.S.-Soviet relations. Bringing together innovative scholarship from around the globe, this groundbreaking collection makes a compelling case for the use of sport as a lens through which to view international relations.

Andrew Johns argues that recent scholars of the Vietnam War have grossly underestimated the importance of partisan politics, election-year maneuvering, and domestic political culture in their understanding of the origins and escalation of America's longest war. In Vietnam's Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War, Johns evaluates the profound influence of the Republican Party - its congressional leadership, governors, elder statesmen, grass-roots organizations, as well as Richard Nixon's administration - on the prosecution of the war. Beginning his analysis in 1961 and continuing through the Paris Peace Accords, Johns argues that the hawkish rhetoric of Republican leaders fomented Democratic fears of a replay of the "who lost China" debate in the event of the "loss" of Vietnam. Johns argues that domestic political considerations were central to the decisions made or postponed by Kennedy and Johnson regarding Southeast Asia. Johns also analyzes how the splintering of a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy which characterized much of the Cold War, influenced American failure to resolve the Vietnam conflict. While much attention has been paid to Nixon's role in the Vietnamization of the war and peace negotiations, Johns is among the first historians to critically evaluate Nixon's role in prodding the Johnson administration to act more aggressively in Vietnam. To demonstrate his arguments, Johns cites Nixon's hawkish pronouncements on the war prior to 1967, his rhetorical retreat to a more moderate position in an effort to win the White House, and his contradictory escalation and disengagement of the war during his first years in office. Vietnam's Second Front makes an important contribution to our understanding of the relationship between American domestic politics and foreign policy.

The Vietnam War has been analyzed, dissected, and debated from multiple perspectives for decades, but domestic considerations -- such as partisan politics and election-year maneuvering -- are often overlooked as determining factors in the evolution and outcome of America's longest war. In Vietnam's Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War, Andrew L. Johns assesses the influence of the Republican Party -- its congressional leadership, politicians, grassroots organizations, and the Nixon administration -- on the escalation, prosecution, and resolution of the Vietnam War. This groundbreaking work also sheds new light on the relationship between Congress and the imperial presidency as they struggled for control over U.S. foreign policy. Beginning his analysis in 1961 and continuing through the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, Johns argues that the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations failed to achieve victory on both fronts of the Vietnam War -- military and political -- because of their preoccupation with domestic politics. Johns details the machinations and political dexterity required of all three presidents and of members of Congress to maneuver between the countervailing forces of escalation and negotiation, offering a provocative account of the ramifications of their decisions. With clear, incisive prose and extensive archival research, Johns's analysis covers the broad range of the Republican Party's impact on the Vietnam War, offers a compelling reassessment of responsibility for the conflict, and challenges assumptions about the roles of Congress and the president in U.S. foreign relations.

In the United States, the Cold War is often remembered as a two-power struggle. However, increasing globalization during that time meant nations across the world became involved in the conflict. During the Eisenhower administration, American officials struggled to respond to the dual threats of communism and nationalism as decolonization swept through the Third World during the 1950s and changed the nature of the Cold War and U.S. foreign relations with those nations. As the Cold War increasingly became a zero-sum game, the Third World became the primary battleground in the ideological, economic, and political struggle between Washington and Moscow. Indeed, as these essays demonstrate, the Eisenhower administration placed an extremely high priority on victory in the Third World and seemed willing to go to virtually any length to ensure that countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas remained aligned with the forces of democracy and capitalism. Relying on formerly unavailable archival research from many nations, the scholars in this volume systematically assess the impact of the globalizing Cold War and the process of decolonization on the Eisenhower administration's foreign policy. Intended for diplomatic historians and readers interested in the Cold War, this book is a major contribution to an under-studied aspect of that conflict. Contributions by: Michael R. Adamson, David L. Anderson, Nathan J. Citino, Peter L. Hahn, Andrew L. Johns, Robert J. McMahon, James H. Meriwether, Kenneth A. Osgood, Chester J. Pach Jr., Jason C. Parker, John Prados, James F. Siekmeier, Kathryn C. Statler, and Yi Sun