The Causes of the First World War by
The causes of the First World War were disputed before the first shots had even been fired. Recriminations intensified following the Treaty of Versailles when the victors accused Germany and its allies of having caused the war. This was the start of a heated blame game in which historians and politicians on all sides became embroiled in a war of documents and publications. More than 100 years on, the question of the origins of the First World War still remains contested. Based on Annika Mombauer's The Origins of the First World War (2002), this thoroughly revised and expanded volume examines the political and ideological concerns that fuelled these international disagreements and offers an extensive analysis of a complex and unique historical controversy from 1914 to the centenary and beyond. It provides students, teachers, scholars and non-specialist readers with a comprehensive guide through the maze of conflicting interpretations.
Soldiers Don't Go Mad by
A brilliant and poignant history of the friendship between two great war poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, alongside a narrative investigation of the origins of PTSD and the literary response to World War I From the moment war broke out across Europe in 1914, the world entered a new, unparalleled era of modern warfare. Soldiers faced relentless machine gun shelling, incredible artillery power, flame throwers, and gas attacks. Within the first four months of the war, the British Army recorded the nervous collapse of ten percent of its officers; the loss of such manpower to mental illness - not to mention death and physical wounds - left the army unable to fill its ranks. Second Lieutenant Wilfred Owen was twenty-four years old when he was admitted to the newly established Craiglockhart War Hospital for treatment of shell shock. A bourgeoning poet, trying to make sense of the terror he had witnessed, he read a collection of poems from a fellow officer, Siegfried Sassoon, and was impressed by his portrayal of the soldier's plight. One month later, Sassoon himself arrived at Craiglockhart, having refused to return to the front after being wounded during battle. Though Owen and Sassoon differed in age, class, education, and interests, both were outsiders - as soldiers unfit to fight, as gay men in a homophobic country, and as Britons unwilling to support a war likely to wipe out an entire generation of young men. But more than anything else, they shared a love of the English language, and its highest expression of poetry. As their friendship evolved over their months as patients at Craiglockhart, each encouraged the other in their work, in their personal reckonings with the morality of war, as well as in their treatment. Therapy provided Owen, Sassoon, and fellow patients with insights that allowed them express themselves better, and for the 28 months that Craiglockhart was in operation, it notably incubated the era's most significant developments in both psychiatry and poetry. Drawing on rich source materials, as well as Glass's own deep understanding of trauma and war, Soldiers Don't Go Mad tells for the first time the story of the soldiers and doctors who struggled with the effects of industrial warfare on the human psyche. Writing beyond the battlefields, to the psychiatric couch of Craiglockhart but also the literary salons, halls of power, and country houses, Glass charts the experiences of Owen and Sassoon, and of their fellow soldier-poets, alongside the greater literary response to modern warfare. As he investigates the roots of what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder, Glass brings historical bearing to how we must consider war's ravaging effects on mental health, and the ways in which creative work helps us come to terms with even the darkest of times.
The United States and the First World War by
Concise, comprehensive and engaging evaluation of the war's significance in American history Balance chronological narrative and introduction of broader concepts Maps and key primary source documents give students the resources they need to grapple with the question of how the conflict revolutionized 20th Century American warfare Updated to reflect most recent scholarship on the subject Author has an outstanding reputation among military historians
Easing Pain on the Western Front by
World War I is regarded as the first modern war, driven by fearful new technologies of mechanized combat. The unprecedented carnage rapidly advanced military medicine, transforming the nature of wartime caregiving and paving the way for modern nursing practice. Drawing on firsthand accounts of American nurses, as well as their Canadian and British counterparts, historian Paul E. Stepansky describes nurses' encounters with devastating new forms of injury--wounds from high-explosive artillery shells, poison gas burns, "shell shock," the Spanish Flu. Comparing nursing practice on the western front with nursing care during the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and the Anglo-Boer War, the author is especially attentive to the emergent technologies employed by nurses of the Great War.
Herbert Corey's Great War by
In 1914, the Associated Newspapers sent correspondent Herbert Corey to Europe on the day Great Britain declared war on Germany. During the Great War that followed, Corey reported from France, Britain, and Germany, visiting the German lines on both the western and eastern fronts. He also reported from Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, and Serbia. When the Armistice was signed in November 1918, Corey defied the rules of the American Expeditionary Forces and crossed into Germany. He covered the Paris Peace Conference the following year. No other foreign correspondent matched the longevity of his reporting during World War I. Until recently, however, his unpublished memoir lay largely unnoticed among his papers in the Library of Congress. With publication of Herbert Corey?s Great War, coeditors Peter Finn and John Maxwell Hamilton reestablish Corey?s name in the annals of American war reporting. As a correspondent, he defies easy comparison. He approximates Ernie Pyle in his sympathetic interest in the American foot soldier, but he also told stories about troops on the other side and about noncombatants. He is especially illuminating on the obstacles reporters faced in conveying the story of the Great War to Americans. As his memoir makes clear, Corey didn?t believe he was in Europe to serve the Allies. He viewed himself as an outsider, one who was deeply ambivalent about the entry of the United States into the war. His idiosyncratic, opinionated, and very American voice makes for compelling reading.
The Wounded World by
The dramatic story of W. E. B. Du Bois's reckoning with the betrayal of Black soldiers during World War I--and a new understanding of one of the great twentieth-century writers. When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to "close ranks" and support the Allied cause in World War I, he made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Seeking both intellectual clarity and personal atonement, for more than two decades Du Bois attempted to write the definitive history of Black participation in World War I. His book, however, remained unfinished. In The Wounded World, Chad Williams offers the dramatic account of Du Bois's failed efforts to complete what would have been one of his most significant works. The surprising story of this unpublished book offers new insight into Du Bois's struggles to reckon with both the history and the troubling memory of the war, along with the broader meanings of race and democracy for Black people in the twentieth century. Drawing on a broad range of sources, most notably Du Bois's unpublished manuscript and research materials, Williams tells a sweeping story of hope, betrayal, disillusionment, and transformation, setting into motion a fresh understanding of the life and mind of arguably the most significant scholar-activist in African American history. In uncovering what happened to Du Bois's largely forgotten book, Williams offers a captivating reminder of the importance of World War I, why it mattered to Du Bois, and why it continues to matter today.
The Beauty of Living by
E. E. Cummings is one of our most popular and enduring poets, one whose name extends beyond the boundaries of the literary world. Renowned for his formally fractured, gleefully alive poetry, Cummings is not often thought of as a war poet. But his experience in France and as a prisoner during World War I (the basis for his first work of prose, The Enormous Room) escalated his earliest breaks with conventional form the innovation with which his name would soon become synonymous. Intimate and richly detailed, The Beauty of Living begins with Cummings's Cambridge upbringing and his relationship with his socially progressive but domestically domineering father. It follows Cummings through his undergraduate experience at Harvard, where he fell into a circle of aspiring writers including John Dos Passos, who became a lifelong friend. Steeped in classical paganism and literary Decadence, Cummings and his friends rode the explosion of Cubism, Futurism, Imagism, and other ?modern? movements in the arts. As the United States prepared to enter World War I, Cummings volunteered as an ambulance driver, shipped out to Paris, and met his first love, Marie Louise Lallemand, who was working in Paris as a prostitute. Soon after reaching the front, however, he was unjustly imprisoned in a brutal French detention center at La Fert??-Mac??. Through this confrontation with arbitrary and sadistic authority, he found the courage to listen to his own voice. Probing an underexamined yet formative time in the poet's life, this deeply researched account illuminates his ideas about love, justice, humanity, and brutality. J. Alison Rosenblitt weaves together letters, journal entries, and sketches with astute analyses of poems that span Cummings's career, revealing the origins of one of the twentieth century's most famous poets.
Bridge to the Sun by
One of the last, great untold stories of World War II-kept hidden for decades-even after most of the World War II records were declassified in 1972, many of the files remained untouched in various archives-a gripping true tale of courage and adventure from Bruce Henderson, master storyteller, historian, and New York Times best-selling author of Sons and Soldiers-the saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater, in Burma, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, with their families back home in America, under U.S. Executive Order 9066, held behind barbed wire in government internment camps. After Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military was desperate to find Americans who spoke Japanese to serve in the Pacific war. They soon turned to the Nisei-first-generation U.S. citizens whose parents were immigrants from Japan. Eager to prove their loyalty to America, several thousand Nisei-many of them volunteering from the internment camps where they were being held behind barbed wire-were selected by the Army for top-secret training, then were rushed to the Pacific theater. Highly valued as expert translators and interrogators, these Japanese American soldiers operated in elite intelligence teams alongside Army infantrymen and Marines on the front lines of the Pacific war, from Iwo Jima to Burma, from the Solomons to Okinawa. Henderson reveals, in riveting detail, the harrowing untold story of the Nisei and their major contributions in the war of the Pacific, through six Japanese American soldiers. After the war, these soldiers became translators and interrogators for war crime trials, and later helped to rebuild Japan as a modern democracy and a pivotal U.S. ally.
Jerome and Rohwer by
Not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into World War II, the federal government rounded up more than a hundred thousand people of Japanese descent-both immigrants and native-born citizens-and began one of the most horrific mass-incarceration events in US history. The program tore apart Asian American communities, extracted families from their homes, and destroyed livelihoods as it forced Japanese Americans to various "relocation centers" around the country. Two of these concentration camps-the Jerome and Rohwer War Relocation Centers-operated in Arkansas. This book is a collection of brief memoirs written by former internees of Jerome and Rohwer and their close family members. Here dozens of individuals, almost all of whom are now in their eighties or nineties, share their personal accounts as well as photographs and other illustrations related to their life-changing experiences. The collection, likely to be one of the last of its kind, is the only work composed solely of autobiographical remembrances of life in Jerome and Rohwer, and one of the very few that gathers in a single volume the experiences of internees in their own words. What emerges is a vivid portrait of lives lived behind barbed wire, where inalienable rights were flouted and American values suspended to bring a misguided sense of security to a race-obsessed nation at war. However, in the barracks and the fields, the mess halls and the makeshift gathering places, values of perseverance, tolerance, and dignity-the gaman the internees shared-gave significance to a transformative experience that changed forever what it means to call oneself an American.
Lawyer, Jailer, Ally, Foe by
It is 1942, and World War II is raging. In the months since Pearl Harbor, the US has plunged into the war overseas--and on the home front, it has locked up tens of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans in concentration camps, tearing them from their homes on the West Coast with the ostensible goal of neutralizing a supposed internal threat. At each of these camps the government places a white lawyer with contradictory instructions: provide legal counsel to the prisoners, and keep the place running. Within that job description are a vast array of tasks, and an enormous amount of discretion they can use for good or for ill. They fight to protect the property the prisoners were forced to leave behind; they help the prisoners with their wills and taxes; and they interrogate them about their loyalties, sometimes driving them to tears. Most of these lawyers think of themselves as trying to do good in a bad system, and yet each ends up harming the prisoners more than helping them, complicit in a system that strips people of their freedoms and sometimes endangers their lives. In Lawyer, Jailer, Ally, Foe, Eric L. Muller brings to vivid life the stories of three of these men, illuminating a shameful episode of American history through imaginative narrative deeply grounded in archival evidence. As we look through the lawyers' sometimes-clear and sometimes-clouded eyes, what emerges is a powerful look at the day-by-day, brick-by-brick perpetration of racial injustice--not just by the system itself, but by the men struggling to do good within it.
After the Blessing by
"This lieutenant gets up there and says, 'American soldiers don't huddle and put their hands in their pockets on a cold day. They stand at attention.' . . . [there was a] buzz . . . in Spanish . . . 'Hey, they called us Americans!'"-Armando Flores, Army Air Corps. Many Catholic families blessed their children before they left home. After the Blessing tells the stories of many young Mexican Americans who left home to fight for their country. During the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), many families fled Mexico to prevent their underage sons from being forced to fight. Ironically, the offspring of these immigrants often ended up across the ocean in a much larger war. Despite the bias and mistreatment most Mexican Americans faced in the US, some 500,000 fought bravely for their country during World War II. Their stories range from hair-raising accounts of the Battle of the Bulge to gut-wrenching testimony about cannibalism in the Pacific. In After the Blessing Mexican Americans reveal their experiences in combat during WWII-stories that have rarely been told.
Facing the Mountain by
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER One of NPR's "Books We Love" of 2021 Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Winner of the Christopher Award "Masterly. An epic story of four Japanese-American families and their sons who volunteered for military service and displayed uncommon heroism... Propulsive and gripping, in part because of Mr. Brown's ability to make us care deeply about the fates of these individual soldiers...a page-turner." - Wall Street Journal From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat, a gripping World War II saga of patriotism and resistance, focusing on four Japanese American men and their families, and the contributions and sacrifices that they made for the sake of the nation. In the days and months after Pearl Harbor, the lives of Japanese Americans across the continent and Hawaii were changed forever. In this unforgettable chronicle of war-time America and the battlefields of Europe, Daniel James Brown portrays the journey of Rudy Tokiwa, Fred Shiosaki, and Kats Miho, who volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who were forced to submit to life in concentration camps on U.S. soil. Woven throughout is the chronicle of Gordon Hirabayashi, one of a cadre of patriotic resisters who stood up against their government in defense of their own rights. Whether fighting on battlefields or in courtrooms, these were Americans under unprecedented strain, doing what Americans do best--striving, resisting, pushing back, rising up, standing on principle, laying down their lives, and enduring.
Immortal Valor by
The remarkable story of the seven African American soldiers ultimately awarded the World War II Medal of Honor, and the 50-year campaign to deny them their recognition. In 1945, when Congress began reviewing the record of the most conspicuous acts of courage by American soldiers during World War II, they recommended awarding the Medal of Honor to 432 recipients. Despite the fact that more than one million African-Americans served, not a single Black soldier received the Medal of Honor. The omission remained on the record for over four decades. But recent historical investigations have brought to light some of the extraordinary acts of valor performed by black soldiers during the war. Men like Vernon Baker, who single-handedly eliminated three enemy machineguns, an observation post, and a German dugout. Or Sergeant Reuben Rivers, who spearhead his tank unit's advance against fierce German resistance for three days despite being grievously wounded. Meanwhile Lieutenant Charles Thomas led his platoon to capture a strategically vital village on the Siegfried Line in 1944 despite losing half his men and suffering a number of wounds himself. Ultimately, in 1993 a US Army commission determined that seven men, including Baker, Rivers and Thomas, had been denied the Army's highest award simply due to racial discrimination. In 1997, more than 50 years after the war, President Clinton finally awarded the Medal of Honor to these seven heroes, sadly all but one of them posthumously. These are their stories.
Half American by
Over one million Black men and women served in World War II, performing unheralded but vital support jobs, only to be denied housing and educational opportunities on their return home. Without their crucial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have won the war. And yet the stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored. In a time when the questions World War II raised regarding race and democracy in America remain troublingly relevant and still unanswered, this meticulously researched retelling makes for urgently necessary reading.
The Atrocity of Hunger by
During World War II, the Germans put the Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland into ghettos which restricted their movement and, most crucially for their survival, access to food. The Germans saw the Jews as 'useless eaters,' and denied them sufficient food for survival. The hunger which resulted from this intentional starvation impacted every aspect of Jewish life inside the ghettos. This book focuses on the Jews in the ŁÃ³dź, Warsaw, and Kraków ghettos as they struggled to survive the deadly Nazi ghetto and, in particular, the genocidal famine conditions. Jews had no control over Nazi food policy but they attempted to survive the deadly conditions of Nazi ghettoization through a range of coping mechanisms and survival strategies. In this book, Helene Sinnreich explores their story, drawing from diaries and first-hand accounts of the victims and survivors. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Jews in the Garden by
Villages of Poland hide the lost secrets of World War II 1944: Heavy footfalls thud on the road on a rainy May night. A band of gunmen scour a hilltop farm, acting on rumors that it harbors a Jewish family. For 18 months, the Rozeneks have been hiding safely, but their luck is about to run out. Only one from the family of six will live to see the sunrise. Sixteen-year-old Hena Rozenek shelters in the woods until morning... and then she runs. Forty years later: Holocaust survivor Sam Rakowski Ron has lived in the United States for decades, never thinking he could return to the Polish village he fled as a teenager. But now he's ready to talk about what he heard, what he saw, and what he knows about two separate families of cousins who were his neighbors, and presumably were killed during the war. The story Poland presents to the world is that Poles saved more Jews than citizens of any other nation, that any murders in Poland were committed by Nazis and Nazis alone. But Sam, while defending his countrymen, suspects a painful truth. The stories he shares with his younger cousin, Judy, an investigative journalist, send them off on a decades-long journey unlike any other to find out what happened to the Rozenek family and ultimately reveal the secrets the Polish government is still desperate to keep. Jews in the Garden is a globe-trotting detective story that turns investigative eyes and ears toward the hidden events in Poland during the Holocaust. Judy and Sam, the unlikeliest of sleuthing duos, knock on doors, petition court documents, seek clandestine meetings, and ultimately discover what really happened to the "Jews in the garden next door."
A Terrible and Terribly Interesting Epoch by
This extraordinary wartime diary provides a rare glimpse into the daily life of French and foreign-born Jewish refugees under the Vichy regime during World War II. Long hidden, the diary was written by Lucien Dreyfus, a native of Alsace who was a teacher at the most prestigious high school in Strasbourg, an editor of the leading Jewish newspaper of Alsace and Lorraine, the devoted father of an only daughter, and the doting grandfather of an only granddaughter. In 1939, after the French declaration of war on Hitler's Germany, Lucien and his wife, Marthe, were forced by the French state to leave Strasbourg along with thousands of other Jewish and non-Jewish residents of the city. The couple found refuge in Nice, on the Mediterranean coast in the south of France. Anti-Jewish laws prevented Lucien from resuming his teaching career and his work as a newspaper editor. But he continued to write, recording his trenchant reflections on the situation of France and French Jews under the Vichy regime. American visas allowed his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter to escape France in the spring of 1942 and establish new lives in the United States, but Lucien and Marthe were not so lucky. Rounded up during an SS raid in September 1943, they were deported and murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau two months later. As the only diary by an observant Jew raised bi-culturally in French and German, Dreyfus's writing offers a unique philosophical and moral reflection on the Holocaust as it was unfolding in France.
The Price of Survival by
In The Price of Survival: Marcus Levin, Norwegian Holocaust Humanitarian, Irene Levin Berman tells the story of her father's heroic attempts to save the Jews of Norway, as well as hundreds of stateless refugees who had escaped other European countries in the 1930s, from deportation to Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Marcus Levin worked tirelessly to help Jews before and after the Nazis invaded Norway, and after the war he worked with the American Joint Distribution Committee and organizations in Norway such as the Jewish Social Unit to help find homes and jobs for the few Norwegian Jews who survived the concentration camps as well as about 600 stateless Displaced Persons. In 1962 Marcus Levin was awarded a gold Medal of Honor by King Olav of Norway in recognition of his efforts during World War II.
The Cold War: a Very Short Introduction by
Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring.The Cold War dominated international life from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But how did the conflict begin? Why did it move from its initial origins in Postwar Europe to encompass virtually every corner of the globe? And why, after lasting so long, did the war endso suddenly and unexpectedly? Robert McMahon considers these questions and more, as well as looking at the legacy of the Cold War and its impact on international relations today.The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction is a truly international history, not just of the Soviet-American struggle at its heart, but also of the waves of decolonization, revolutionary nationalism, and state formation that swept the non-Western world in the wake of World War II. McMahon places the"Hot Wars" that cost millions of lives in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere within the larger framework of global superpower competition. He shows how the United States and the Soviet Union both became empires over the course of the Cold War, and argues that perceived security needs and fears shapedU.S. and Soviet decisions from the beginning - far more, in fact, than did their economic and territorial ambitions. He unpacks how these needs and fears were conditioned by the divergent cultures, ideologies, and historical experiences of the two principal contestants and their allies. Covering theyears 1945-1990, this second edition uses recent scholarship and newly available documents to offer a fuller analysis of the Vietnam War, the changing global politics of the 1970s, and the end of the Cold War.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Lost in the Cold War by
In 1952, John T. "Jack" Downey, a twenty-three-year-old CIA officer from Connecticut, was shot down over Manchuria during the Korean War. The pilots died in the crash, but Downey and his partner Richard "Dick" Fecteau were captured by the Chinese. For the next twenty years, they were harshly interrogated, put through show trials, held in solitary confinement, placed in reeducation camps, and toured around China as political pawns. Other prisoners of war came and went, but Downey and Fecteau's release hinged on the United States acknowledging their status as CIA assets. Not until Nixon's visit to China did Sino-American relations thaw enough to secure Fecteau's release in 1971 and Downey's in 1973. Lost in the Cold War is the never-before-told story of Downey's decades as a prisoner of war and the efforts to bring him home. Downey's lively and gripping memoir--written in secret late in life--interweaves horrors and deprivation with humor and the absurdities of captivity. He recounts his prison experiences: fearful interrogations, pantomime communications with his guards, a 3,000-page overstuffed confession designed to confuse his captors, and posing for "show" photographs for propaganda purposes. Through the eyes of his captors and during his tours around China, Downey watched the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the drastic transformations of the Mao era. In interspersed chapters, Thomas J. Christensen, an expert on Sino-American relations, explores the international politics of the Cold War and tells the story of how Downey and Fecteau's families, the CIA, the U.S. State Department, and successive presidential administrations worked to secure their release.
Nuclear Folly by
Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, today's world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To survive this new atomic age, we must relearn the lessons of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban missile crisis. Serhii Plokhy's Nuclear Folly offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, which involved John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground. In breathtaking detail, Plokhy vividly recounts the young JFK being played by the canny Khrushchev; the hotheaded Castro willing to defy the USSR and threatening to align himself with China; the Soviet troops on the ground clearing jungle foliage in the tropical heat, and desperately trying to conceal nuclear installations on Cuba, which were nonetheless easily spotted by U-2 spy planes; and the hair-raising near misses at sea that nearly caused a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine to fire its weapons. More often than not, the Americans and Soviets misread each other, operated under false information, and came perilously close to nuclear catastrophe. Despite these errors, nuclear war was ultimately avoided for one central reason: fear, and the realization that any escalation on either the Soviets' or the Americans' part would lead to mutual destruction. Drawing on a range of Soviet archival sources, including previously classified KGB documents, as well as White House tapes, Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama and anxiety of those tense days, and provides a way for us to grapple with the problems posed in our present day.
Reagan's War Stories by
Reagan's War Stories examines the relationship between Ronald Reagan, the public and popular culture. From an overview of Reagan's youth and the pulp fiction he consumed, we get a sense of the future president's good/evil outlook. Carrying that over into Reagan's reading and choices as president, Griffin situates narrative at the center of Reagan's political formation and leadership providing a compelling account of both Reagan's life, his presidency, and a lens into non-traditional strategy formulation. Author Ben Griffin tells three stories about an American president who ushered in the end of the Cold War. A survey of Reagan's youth and the fiction he consumed and created as an announcer and actor, reveals how the future president's worldview developed. A look at the rise of fiction and popular culture rife with pro-Americanism in the 1980s details a uniquely symbiotic relationship between the chief executive and popular culture in framing the Cold War as a struggle with an "Evil Empire" in the Soviet Union. Finally, Griffin outlines how presidential personality and reading preferences shaped President Reagan's pursuit of the "Star Wars" initiative and belief in the transformative combination of freedom and technology. Griffin demonstrates that novels by Tom Clancy, Louis L'Amour, and science fiction influenced Reagan's view of 1980s geopolitics. His identification with fiction led Ronald Reagan to view European Cold War issues with more empathy but harmed the president's policymaking when the narrowness of his reading led him to apply a white-hat/black-hat framework that did not match the reality of conflict in Latin America. Reagan treated fictional portrayals seriously, believing they shaped public views and offered valid ways to think through geo-political issues. Seeking to shape the reading habits of the public, his administration sought to highlight authors who shared his worldview like Tom Clancy, Louis L'Amour, and Allen Drury over other popular writers like Robert Ludlum and John Le Carré who portrayed the Cold War in less stark moral terms. The administration's favored popular authors in turn intentionally incorporated Reagan-era policies into their work to advocate for them through fiction, thus reaching a broader audience than via official government releases and speeches. Showing how Reagan used narrative as both a consumer and a communicator, Griffin notes that Reagan identified with certain stories and they shaped him as a political leader and later and influenced his approach to complex issues. When handled deftly, incorporating fiction created a common language across the administration and provided a way to convey messages to the masses in a memorable fashion.
Cold War Radio by
Cold War Radio is a fascinating look at how the United States waged the Cold War through the international broadcasting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Mark G. Pomar served in senior positions at VOA and RFE/RL from 1982 to 1993, during which time the Reagan and Bush administrations made VOA and RFE/RL an important part of their foreign policy. VOA is America's "national voice," broadcasting in more than forty languages, and is charged with explaining U.S. government policies and telling America's story with the aim of gaining the respect and goodwill of its target audience. During the Cold War, the VOA Russian Service broadcast twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. RFE/RL is a private corporation, funded until 1971 by the CIA and afterward through open congressional appropriations. It broadcast in more than twenty languages of Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia and functioned as a "home service" located abroad. Its Russian Service broadcast news, feature programming, and op-eds that would have been part of daily political discourse if Russia had free media. Pomar takes readers inside the two radio stations to show how the broadcasts were conceived and developed and the impact they had on international broadcasting, U.S.-Soviet relations, Russian political and cultural history, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Pomar provides nuanced analysis of the broadcasts and sheds light on the multifaceted role the radios played during the Cold War, ranging from instruments of U.S. Cold War policy to repositories of independent Russian culture, literature, philosophy, religion, and the arts. Cold War Radio breaks new ground as Pomar integrates his analysis of Cold War radio programming with the long-term aims of U.S. foreign policy, illuminating the role of radio in the peaceful end of the Cold War.
Secrets of the Cold War by
The dramatic story of how the superpowers collected secrets and used intelligence to build an advantage during the Cold War, the longest and most dangerous confrontation of the twentieth century. The Cold War, which lasted from the end of the Second World War to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, was fought mostly in the shadows, with the superpowers maneuvering for strategic advantage in an anticipated global armed confrontation that thankfully never happened.How did the intelligence organizations of the major world powers go about their work? What advantages were they looking for? Did they succeed?By examining some of the famous, infamous, or lesser-known intelligence operations from both sides of the Iron Curtain, this book explains how the superpowers went about gathering intelligence on each other, examines the type of information they were looking for, what they did with it, and how it enabled them to stay one step ahead of the opposition. Possession of these secrets threatened a Third World War, but also helped keep the peace for more than four decades.With access to previously unreleased material, the author explores how the intelligence organizations, both civilian and military, took advantage of rapid developments in technology, and how they adapted to the changing threat. The book describes the epic scale of some of these operations, the surprising connections between them, and how they contributed to a complex multi-layered intelligence jigsaw which drove decision making at the highest level.On top of all the tradecraft, gadgets and 'cloak and dagger', the book also looks at the human side of espionage: their ideologies and motivations, the winners and losers, and the immense courage and frequent betrayal of those whose lives were touched by the Secrets of the Cold War.
The Quiet Americans by
From the bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia--the gripping story of four CIA agents during the early days of the Cold War--and how the United States, at the very pinnacle of its power, managed to permanently damage its moral standing in the world. "Enthralling ... captivating reading." --The New York Times Book Review At the end of World War II, the United States was considered the victor over tyranny and a champion of freedom. But it was clear--to some--that the Soviet Union was already seeking to expand and foment revolution around the world, and the American government's strategy in response relied on the secret efforts of a newly formed CIA. Chronicling the fascinating lives of four agents, Scott Anderson follows the exploits of four spies: Michael Burke, who organized parachute commandos from an Italian villa; Frank Wisner, an ingenious spymaster who directed actions around the world; Peter Sichel, a German Jew who outwitted the ruthless KGB in Berlin; and Edward Lansdale, a mastermind of psychological warfare in the Far East. But despite their lofty ambitions, time and again their efforts went awry, thwarted by a combination of ham-fisted politicking and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government.
Assignment Russia by
A personal journey through some of the darkest moments of the cold war and the early days of television news Marvin Kalb, the award-winning journalist who has written extensively about the world he reported on during his long career, now turns his eye on the young man who became that journalist. Chosen by legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow to become one of what came to be known as the Murrow Boys, Kalb in this newest volume of his memoirs takes readers back to his first days as a journalist, and what also were the first days of broadcast news. Kalb captures the excitement of being present at the creation of a whole new way of bringing news immediately to the public. And what news. Cold War tensions were high between Eisenhower's America and Khrushchev's Soviet Union. Kalb is at the center, occupying a unique spot as a student of Russia tasked with explaining Moscow to Washington and the American public. He joins a cast of legendary figures along the way, from Murrow himself to Eric Severeid, Howard K. Smith, Richard Hottelet, Charles Kuralt, and Daniel Schorr among many others. He finds himself assigned as Moscow correspondent of CBS News just as the U2 incident--the downing of a US spy plane over Russian territory--is unfolding. As readers of his first volume, The Year I Was Peter the Great, will recall, being the right person, in the right place, at the right time found Kalb face to face with Khrushchev. Assignment Russia sees Kalb once again an eyewitness to history--and a writer and analyst who has helped shape the first draft of that history. Kalb witnessed and interpreted many of the defining events of the Cold War. In Assignment Russia he ultimately finds himself assigned as Moscow correspondent for CBS News just as the U-2 incident--the downing of a U.S. spy plane over Russianterritory--is unfolding. Kalb brings alive once again the tension that surrounded that event, and the reportorial skills deployed to illuminate it. Like The Year I Was Peter the Great, the first volume in a series of memoirs narrating his earlier life,Assignment Russia brings us Kalb once again as an eyewitness to history--and a writer and analyst who has helped shape the first draft of that history.
Casseroles, Can Openers, and Jello-o by
Silver Winner of the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Popular Culture category Casseroles, Can Openers, and Jell-O provides insight on how American food culture developed during the early years of the Cold War. Highlighting gender roles, the promotion of democracy and capitalism, and the impact of mass market advertising, the book draws on cookbooks, popular magazines, television advertisements, government publications, and industry pamphlets to paint a vivid picture of what Americans ate and how food was enlisted as a symbol of America's postwar dominance. Featuring eighty recipes, the book shows how the food industry promoted new processed foods to an increasingly industrialized nation. For anyone wanting to better understand how America's food culture developed during the mid-twentieth century and for those who were raised on TV dinners and Campbell's soup, the book offers an engaging and evocative look at the story of American cuisine during the early years of the Cold War.
Korea Reborn (Hyundai Ed. ) by
Historical commemorative book honoring U.S. military veterans for their service in the Korean War. (Hyundai Edition)
The Wrong War by
In 1951, General Omar Bradley declared publicly that war with China would involve the United States "in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy." Despite the stated intent of the U.S. to keep the Korean conflict from spreading, the debate on extending the war was far more intense and protracted than previous accounts of this period have suggested. Concentrating on the debate over expansion, Rosemary Foot reveals the strains it caused both within the U.S. bureaucracy and between America and its North Atlantic allies. She supplies important new information on the U.S. government's appraisal of Sino-Soviet relations between 1950 and 1953, and makes clear that a high proportion of U.S. officials came to recognize the limited nature of Soviet support for China. Explaining why the Eisenhower administration nearly unleashed nuclear weapons on China in the spring of 1953, Foot demonstrates that the Korean war would very likely have grown into a conflict of major proportions if the Chinese and North Koreans had not conceded the final issue of the truce talks--the question of the voluntary repatriation of prisoners of war.
Twice Forgotten by
Journalists began to call the Korean War "the Forgotten War" even before it ended. Without a doubt, the most neglected story of this already neglected war is that of African Americans who served just two years after Harry S. Truman ordered the desegregation of the military. Twice Forgotten draws on oral histories of Black Korean War veterans to recover the story of their contributions to the fight, the reality that the military&8239;desegregated in fits and starts, and how veterans' service fits into the long history of the Black freedom struggle. This collection of seventy oral histories, drawn from across the country, features interviews conducted by the author and his colleagues for their American Radio Works documentary, Korea: The Unfinished War, which examines the conflict as experienced by the approximately 600,000 Black men and women who served. It also includes narratives from other sources, including the Library of Congress's visionary Veterans History Project. In their own voices, soldiers and sailors and flyers tell the story of what it meant, how it felt, and what it cost them to fight for the freedom abroad that was too often denied them at home.
Minor Salvage by
The Korean War, often invoked in American culture as "the forgotten war," remains ongoing. Though active fighting only occurred between 1950 and 1953, the signing of an armistice resulted in an infamous stalemate and the construction of the Korean Peninsula's Demilitarized Zone. Minor Salvage reads early Korean American life writings in order to explore the admittedly partial ways in which those made precarious by war seek to rebuild their lives. The titular phrase "minor salvage," draws on different valences of the word salvage which, while initially associated with naval recovery efforts, can also be used to describe the rescue of waste material. Spurred by the stories told and retold to him by his parents Soon Ho and Yunpyo, Sohn enacts minor salvage by reading overlooked early Korean American life writings penned by Induk Pahk, Taiwon Koh, Joseph Anthony, and Kim Yong-ik alongside a later generation of life writings authored by Sunny Che and K. Connie Kang. In the context of the Korean War, Sohn argues, life writings take on a crucial political orientation precisely because of the fragility attached to refugees, civilians, children, women, and divided family members. To depict the possibility of life is to acknowledge simultaneously the threat of death, violence, and brutality, and in this regard, such life writings are part of a longer genealogy in which marginalized communities find representational power through the creative process.
The Korean War Remembered by
Michael J. Devine provides a fresh, wide-ranging, and international perspective on the contested memory of the 1950-1953 conflict that left the Korean Peninsula divided along a heavily fortified demilitarized zone. His work examines "theaters of memory," including literature, popular culture, public education efforts, monuments, and museums in the United States, China, and the two Koreas, to explain how contested memories have evolved over decades and how they continue to shape the domestic and foreign policies of the countries still involved in this unresolved struggle for dominance and legitimacy. The Korean War Remembered also engages with the revisionist school of historians who, influenced by America's long nightmare in Vietnam, consider the Korean War an unwise U.S. interference in a civil war that should have been left to the Koreans to decide for themselves. As a former Peace Corps volunteer to Korea, a two-time senior Fulbright lecturer at Korean universities, and former director of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Devine offers the unique perspective of a scholar with half a century of close ties to Korea and the Korean American community, as well as practical experience in the management of historical institutions.
J. Calvin Coolidge by
J. CALVIN COOLIDGE: LETTERS FROM THE KOREAN WAR follows Coolidge from his early farming days in West Springfield, Massachusetts, to the front lines of the Korean War. Calvin's younger sister Ann is awakened when a telegram arrives informing the family that Private Coolidge has been wounded during the bitter battle of Kings Hill (Hill 902 in North Korea). Calvin writes to his friend Sully: "The Reds attacked our Co. full force about 3:00 am. We were located about 15 to 20 miles above the 38th in the central sector... I am beginning to think a guy could get killed over here." And to his parents: "As I write this letter from Pusan on a Danish hospital ship, I suppose you have received a telegram stating I was injured in action. I was winged in the shoulder at the base of the neck. It is not serious. No broken bones... Don't want you to worry at home because I am doing great. Had steak and ice cream for dinner." J. CALVIN COOLIDGE: LETTERS FROM THE KOREAN WAR contains letters, rare photographs, and newspaper clippings telling the story of three courageous young people navigating their way through the challenging times of America's forgotten war. Edited by his niece, author Lisa Soland, this historical book contains information regarding J. Calvin Coolidge's relation to his namesake, the 3oth President of the United States.) WHAT THEY'RE SAYING... "J. Calvin Coolidge: Letters from the Korean War is a timely and excellent book by Lisa Soland that follows the life of a forgotten American hero who served his nation during the Korean War. The pinnacle of this book captures the battle of King's Hill (Hill 902) in North Korea, where Calvin and his unit faced a massive assault by the communist forces. Despite being massively outnumbered, Calvin's unit beat back the Reds, although at a great cost in lives. Calvin himself was seriously wounded in this action. I highly recommend this book that revives the memory of a great American and reminds us of the great sacrifice that comes with our freedoms." Senator Doug Mastriano, PhD, Colonel, US Army (retired) "It is often said that newspapers are pages of American history, written one day at a time. The same holds true for letters from soldiers facing enemies half a world away. In Lisa Soland's latest book, these up-close accounts were penned by her uncle, J. Calvin Coolidge, during the Korean War. Unlike his storied namesake, this Coolidge wasn't silent, for which readers and historians can be thankful." Sam Venable, author and columnist, Knoxville News Sentinel "Clearly, President Coolidge and his namesake cousin shared much more than a name. Both lived in Western Massachusetts; both served their country; both chronicled their lives through their letters and photographs. And both men shared a blend of wit and wisdom that is so characteristic of New Englanders. Lisa's well-researched and well-written book will serve as an inspiration for anyone thinking aboutcompiling a family memoir of their own." Tracy W. Messer, APR, Living History Performer as "President Calvin Coolidge"
A War Tour of Viet Nam by
The Viet Nam War ended almost half a century ago. This book-part history, part travelogue-reveals the war's legacy, still very much alive, in the places where it was fought and in the memories and memorials of those who survived it. The chronological story of the war is told through exploration of culture, history, popular music, and the countries who were major players: North and South Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Australia and the United States. The author traverses significant sites like Dien Bien Phu-where French colonialism ended and U.S. intervention began-the DMZ, Hamburger Hill, the Rock Pile, the Cu Chi Tunnels, and Australia's most famous battlefield, Long Tan. Residual hazards of the war remain in the form of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in such places as Siem Reap, Luang Prabang, and in Quang Tri Province, where nonprofit groups like Project RENEW work to manage removal and provide victim assistance.
Race in the Crucible of War by
When African American servicemen went to fight in the Vietnam War, discrimination and prejudice followed them. Even in a faraway country, their military experiences were shaped by the racial environment of the home front. War is often viewed as a crucible that can transform society, but American race relations proved remarkably durable. In Race in the Crucible of War, Gerald F. Goodwin examines how Black servicemen experienced and interpreted racial issues during their time in Vietnam. Drawing on more than fifty new oral interviews and significant archival research, as well as newspapers, periodicals, memoirs, and documentaries, Goodwin reveals that for many African Americans the front line and the home front were two sides of the same coin. Serving during the same period as the civil rights movement and the race riots in Chicago, Detroit, and dozens of other American cities, these men increasingly connected the racism that they encountered in the barracks and on the battlefields with the tensions and violence that were simmering back home.
The Long Reckoning by
The moving story of how a small group of people--including two Vietnam veterans--forced the U.S. government to take responsibility for the ongoing horrors--agent orange and unexploded munitions--inflicted on the Vietnamese. "Fifty years after the last U.S. service member left Vietnam, the scars of that war remain...This [is the] remarkable story of a group of individuals determined to heal those enduring wounds."--Elliot Ackerman, author of The Fifth Act and 2034 The American war in Vietnam has left many long-lasting scars that have not yet been sufficiently examined. The worst of them were inflicted in a tiny area bounded by the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in neighboring Laos. That small region saw the most intense aerial bombing campaign in history, the massive use of toxic chemicals, and the heaviest casualties on both sides. In The Long Reckoning, George Black recounts the inspirational story of the small cast of characters--veterans, scientists, and Quaker-inspired pacifists, and their Vietnamese partners--who used their moral authority, scientific and political ingenuity, and sheer persistence to attempt to heal the horrors that were left in the wake of the military engagement in Southeast Asia. Their intersecting story is one of reconciliation and personal redemption, embedded in a vivid portrait of Vietnam today, with all its startling collisions between past and present, in which one-time mortal enemies, in the endless shape-shifting of geopolitics, have been transformed into close allies and partners. The Long Reckoning is being published on the fiftieth anniversary of the day the last American combat soldier left Vietnam.
Army Nurse Corps Voices from the Vietnam War by
This book provides an oral history of women who served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War. It follows the trajectory of eight women's lives from their decision to become nurses, to surgical and evacuation hospitals in Vietnam, and then home to face the consequences of war on their personal and professional lives. It documents their lived experience in Vietnam and explores the memories and personal stories of nurses who treated injured American soldiers, Vietnamese civilians, and the enemy. Their voices reveal the physical and emotional challenges, trauma, contradictions, and lingering effects of war on their lives. Women in the U.S. Army in Vietnam feared the enemy but also sexual violence and harassment: the experiences this book documents also shed light on the extent of historical sexual abuse in the military.
What We Can and Can't Afford by
Bill Ehrhart's experiences in the Vietnam War have defined his life--first as an enlisted member of a Marine infantry battalion, then as an author, poet and teacher who has spent fifty years explicating the war and its consequences in books, lectures and interviews. In these essays he explores a diverse range of topics, including gun violence and the Second Amendment, American politics and the accelerating destruction of civil society, Afghanistan and other foreign policy misadventures, Israel and Palestine, the nature of patriotism, history as fact and mythology, the blessings of technology, the vast mystery of the universe, the attraction of Grand Tour bicycle racing, the much misunderstood writer Stephen Crane, poets you should know about but probably don't, and more.