The devil we knew : Americans and the Cold War
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The devil we knew : Americans and the Cold War
Oxford University Press, 1993
- : acid-free paper
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-236) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
H. W. Brands, author of Inside the Cold War: Loy Henderson and the Rise of the American Empire, 1918-1961 (OUP/USA 1991) and Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines (OUP/USA, Fall 1992), has written a stimulating book on the Cold War and American policy relating to it - especially involving the question of why the Cold War lasted as long as it did. It is Brands's controversial assumption that in many ways it was American attitudes and foreign policy that fostered the extension of the Cold War as long as it lasted. Brands examines America's involvement in the Cold War in four distinct areas - the psychological, strategic, economic, and political - and how these factors interacted with each other in different ways and different periods over the entire era. The book combines these four persepectives into a broad explanation of American action during the Cold War and attempts to answer the question about why America acted as it did. Brands's book is intended to be an extended essay and think-piece, not a comprehensive history of the Cold War.
Much of the book focuses on how the Cold War developed a life of its own during its 40-odd years of existence: major groups shaping American foreign policy felt comfortable with its conditions and were reluctant to leave it for uncharted territory. This is a stimulating, well-written study that focuses on the main events and ideas of American foreign policy since the war. It is especially effective in showing how American perceptions and domestic attitudes tended to influence - often negatively - the way American foreign policy dealt with the post-1945 world.
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