The new edition of this classic text for courses on recent U.S. history covers the story of contemporary America from World War II into the second decade of the twenty-first century with new coverage of the Obama presidency and the 2012 elections. Written by three highly respected scholars, the book seamlessly blends political, social, cultural, intellectual, and economic themes into an authoritative and readable account of our increasingly complex national story. The seventh edition retains its affordability and conciseness while continuing to add the most recent scholarship. Each chapter contains a special feature section devoted to cultural topics including the arts and architecture, sports and recreation, technology and education. Enhancing the students' learning experience is the addition of web links to each of these features to provide complementary visual study tools. An American Century instructor site provides instructors who adopt the book with high interest features--illustrations, photos, maps, quizzes, an elaboration of key themes in the book, PowerPoint presentations, and lecture launchers on topics including the "Military-Industrial Complex" Speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Tet Offensive, and the prospects for a Second American Century. In addition, students have free access to a multimedia primary source archive of materials carefully selected to support the themes of each chapter.

This book is about U.S. policy makers who have wielded enormous influence, largely behind the scenes, since the end of World War II. The advent of the Cold War brought new problems of national security for the United States. As a result, U.S. presidents no longer sat down with their secretaries of state to determine the nation's foreign policy. Instead, postwar chief executives reached out to individuals in the intelligence and military organizations and, increasingly, to advisers in the White House. The Policy Makers examines seven such advisers_from public servants in the state department to CIA directors and U.S. senators_and the policies each adviser influenced. By focusing on individuals whose policy making role was often unknown to the public, Anna Kasten Nelson and her contributors shed light on the myriad ways in which the postwar foreign policy of the United States has been shaped, sometimes in ways very damaging to the nation's security.

This is a moving, star-filled account of one of Hollywood s true golden ages as told by a man in the middle of it all. Walter Mirisch s company has produced some of the most entertaining and enduring classics in film history, including West Side Story, Some Like It Hot, In the Heat of the Night, and The Magnificent Seven. His work has led to 87 Academy Award nominations and 28 Oscars. Richly illustrated with rare photographs from his personal collection, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History reveals Mirisch s own experience of Hollywood and tells the stories of the stars emerging and established who appeared in his films, including Natalie Wood, John Wayne, Peter Sellers, Sidney Poitier, Steve McQueen, Marilyn Monroe, and many others. With hard-won insight and gentle humor, Mirisch recounts how he witnessed the end of the studio system, the development of independent production, and the rise and fall of some of Hollywood s most gifted (and notorious) cultural icons. A producer with a passion for creative excellence, he offers insights into his innovative filmmaking process, revealing a rare ingenuity for placating the demands of auteur directors, weak-kneed studio executives, and troubled screen sirens. From his early start as a movie theater usher to the presentation of such masterpieces as The Apartment, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Great Escape, Mirisch tells the inspiring life story of his climb to the highest echelon of the American film industry. This book assures Mirisch s legacy as Elmore Leonard puts it as one of the good guys. Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Association "

Lyndon Johnson made a life or death bet during his Presidential term, and lost. Intent upon fighting an extended war against a determined foe, he gambled that American society could also endure a vast array of domestic reforms. The result was the turmoil of the 1968 presidential election-a crisis more severe than any since the Civil War. With thousands killed in Vietnam, hundreds dead in civil rights riots, televised chaos at the Democratic National Convention, and two major assassinations, Americans responded by voting for the law and order message of Richard Nixon. In The Deadly Bet, distinguished historian Walter LaFeber explores the turbulent election of 1968 and its significance in the larger context of American history. Looking through the eyes of the year's most important players-including Robert F. Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, Martin Luther King, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, George Wallace, Nguyen Van Thieu, and Lyndon Johnson-LaFeber argues that the domestic upheaval had more impact on the election than the war in Vietnam. Clear, concise, and engaging, this work sheds important light on the crucial year of 1968.

' ... sums up the central themes of a busy and peripatetic life in 15 fascinating chapters.' - Asian Affairs

'All is laid bare in this fascinating book. A testament in the true sense of the word .. the book not only captures the historical pinnacles of Indonesia but also those of Vietnam and Cambodia.' - Jakarta Post

' ... sums up the central themes of a busy and peripatetic life in 15 fascinating chapters.' - Asian Affairs

'All is laid bare in this fascinating book. A testament in the true sense of the word .. the book not only captures the historical pinnacles of Indonesia but also those of Vietnam and Cambodia.' - Jakarta Post

Since their first publication, the four volumes of the Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations have served as the definitive source for the topic, from the colonial period to the Cold War. This revised second volume describes the causes and dynamics of United States foreign policy from 1865 to 1913, the era when the United States became one of the four great world powers and the world's greatest economic power. The dramatic expansion of global power during this period was set in motion by the strike-ridden, bloody, economic depression from 1873 to 1897 when American farms and factories began seeking overseas markets for their surplus goods, as well as by a series of foreign policy triumphs, as America extended its authority to Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Panama Canal Zone, Central America, the Philippines, and China. Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt set foreign policy precedents by creating historic policies in which they used the post-1890 battleship fleet, a navy that quickly became one of the world's most powerful fleets. Ironically, as Americans searched for opportunity and stability abroad, they instead helped create revolutions in Central America, Panama, the Philippines, Mexico, China, and Russia. These outbreaks introduced the twentieth century as a century of revolutions with which the United States would have to deal as a top world power.

The American Search for Opportunity, 1865-1913 analyzes the period between the American Civil War and World War I (1865-1913) as the formative basis for twentieth-century American world power--"The American Century" as it has become known--and examines the "Imperial Presidency" that these roots produced. The extent of U.S. power was so great that it not only transformed American society, but reshaped other societies around the globe as well, by helping fuel--and in some cases directly causing--the great revolutions of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries in Mexico, Russia, China, Cuba, Hawaii, the Philippines, Panama, and Central America. The book, therefore, not only examines American history, but the history of many other areas that were dramatically affected by U.S. power as they entered the twentieth century.

This book focuses on the U.S. foreign and domestic policies, at points noting how the two are necessarily related. It includes brief analyses of developments elsewhere in the world to help students understand the foreign policy.

Since their first publication, the four volumes of the Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations have served as the definitive source for the topic, from the colonial period to the Cold War. This second volume of the updated edition describes the causes and dynamics of United States foreign policy from 1865 to 1913, the era when the United States became one of the four great world powers and the world's greatest economic power. The dramatic expansion of global power during this period was set in motion by the strike-ridden, bloody, economic depression from 1873 to 1897 when American farms and factories began seeking overseas markets for their surplus goods, as well as by a series of foreign policy triumphs, as America extended its authority to Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Panama Canal Zone, Central America, the Philippines and China. Ironically, as Americans searched for opportunity and stability abroad, they helped create revolutions in Central America, Panama, the Philippines, Mexico, China and Russia.

The new edition of this classic text for courses on recent U.S. history covers the story of contemporary America from World War II into the second decade of the twenty-first century with new coverage of the Obama presidency and the 2012 elections. Written by three highly respected scholars, the book seamlessly blends political, social, cultural, intellectual, and economic themes into an authoritative and readable account of our increasingly complex national story. The seventh edition retains its affordability and conciseness while continuing to add the most recent scholarship. Each chapter contains a special feature section devoted to cultural topics including the arts and architecture, sports and recreation, technology and education. Enhancing the students' learning experience is the addition of web links to each of these features to provide complementary visual study tools. An American Century instructor site provides instructors who adopt the book with high interest features--illustrations, photos, maps, quizzes, an elaboration of key themes in the book, PowerPoint presentations, and lecture launchers on topics including the "Military-Industrial Complex" Speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Tet Offensive, and the prospects for a Second American Century. In addition, students have free access to a multimedia primary source archive of materials carefully selected to support the themes of each chapter.

In the Second Edition, LaFeber has revised nearly every chapter in the book. In the early chapters, there is more attention to the origins of foreign policy institutions and practices, including precedents for the executive agreement, and new discussions of U.S. relations with Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The more recent chapters feature fresh insights of Potsdam, the origins of the Korean War, and the Cuban Missile Crisis--all based on new evidence drawn from Soviet archives. The new edition amply covers the momentous events that brought the Cold War to an end and thrust the United States into the uncetain position of the world's only superpower.

Writing in Life magazine in February 1941, Henry Luce memorably announced the arrival of "The American Century." The phrase caught on, as did the belief that America's moment was at hand. Yet as Andrew J. Bacevich makes clear, that century has now ended, the victim of strategic miscalculation, military misadventures, and economic decline. To take stock of the short American Century and place it in historical perspective, Bacevich has assembled a richly provocative range of perspectives. What did this age of reputed American preeminence signify? What caused its premature demise? What legacy remains in its wake? Distinguished historians Jeffry Frieden, Akira Iriye, David Kennedy, Walter LaFeber, Jackson Lears, Eugene McCarraher, Emily Rosenberg, and Nikhil Pal Singh offer illuminating answers to these questions. Achievement and failure, wisdom and folly, calculation and confusion all make their appearance in essays that touch on topics as varied as internationalism and empire, race and religion, consumerism and globalization. As the United States grapples with protracted wars, daunting economic uncertainty, and pressing questions about exactly what role it should play in a rapidly changing world, understanding where the nation has been and how it got where it is today is critical. What did the forging of the American Century-with its considerable achievements but also its ample disappointments and missed opportunities-ultimately yield? That is the question this important volume answers.

Second Edition, Revised and Expanded

Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica. Five small countries, and seemingly so remote. Yet even before teh Iran-Contra debacle, no part of the world was more vital to teh United States, and no part more in need of understanding by Americans.

The first edition of Inevitable Revolutions, published ten years ago, was widely hailed and quickly became a bestseller. Now, completely revised and updated—one-third of its contents are entirely new—Walter LaFeber brings to a new generation of readers the story, in Arthur Schlesinger's words, "of a long and squalid history of U.S. exploitation and intervention combined with neglect—a history whose consequences we are reaping today."

"This, the second edition of Walter LaFeber's Inevitable Revolutions, is even more valuable than the first, for it brings us up to date and provides a penetrating and scathing analysis of the cynical debacle that was the Reagan-Bush Central American policy." —Wayne Smith, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

"The best book on Central America in over 100 years. . . . A concise and compelling story." —Murat Williams, former ambassador to El Salvador

"The best historical synthesis in the last century." —Alfred Stepan, New York Times Book Review

Winner of the Bancroft Prize.

When Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo harbor in July 1853, opening Japan to the West, a century and a half of economic, cultural, and occasionally violent clashes between Americans and Japanese began.

Walter LaFeber, one of America's leading historians, has written the first book to tell the entire story behind the disagreements, tensions, and skirmishes between Japan — a compact, homogenous, closely knit society terrified of disorder — and America — a sprawling, open-ended society that fears economic depression and continually seeks an international marketplace.

Using both American and Japanese sources, LaFeber provides the history behind the vicissitudes of rearming Japan, the present-day tensions in U.S.-Japan trade talks, Japan's continuing importance in financing America's huge deficit, and both nations' drive to develop China — a shadow that has darkened American-Japanese relations from the beginning.

"Broad and deeply researched. . . . The Clash is beautifully written, with clear arguments and no irrelevancies."—Gaddis Smith, Boston Globe

"[This] work will easily become the best history of U.S.-Japanese relations in any language."—Akira Iriye, professor of history, Harvard University

"[LaFeber] succeeds brilliantly. . . . [W]ell-researched, meticulously sourced and highly readable."—Don Oberdorfer, Washington Post Book World

His narrative account featured several major politics; the impact of American economic development on foreign policy interests; popular culture, particularly film, as a filter for public opinion on American commitments abroad; the roles of public opinion, leadership, and bureaucracy in the formation of policy.

In the Second Edition, LaFeber has revised nearly every chapter in the book. In the early chapters, there is more attention to the origins of foreign policy institutions and practices, including precedents for the executive agreement, and new discussions of U.S. relations with Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The more recent chapters feature fresh insights on Potsdam, the origins of the Korean War, and the Cuban Missile Crisis all based on new evidence drawn from Soviet archives.The new edition amply covers the momentous events that brought the Cold War to an end and thrust the United States into the uncertain position of the world's only superpower."