Churchill's Cold War: The Politics of Personal Diplomacy

Book Description

Churchill's techniques of government were distinctly unconventional. Energetic, self-confident, and persuasive, he preferred to act outside official civil service channels when the stakes were high. When forming foreign policy, his preferred modus operandi was summit diplomacy-the cultivation of personal contacts to achieve national objectives. At its best his direct intervention could be heroically successful, resulting, for example, in the entry of the United States into the Second World War. At its worst it failed utterly. Either way this was international politics at a level of high drama and high risk.

This book explores Churchill's predilection for direct diplomatic action from his first tentative involvement in 1908 until his retirement as prime minister in 1955. Its principal focus is the period 1945-1955, during which the full force of Churchill's personal diplomacy was directed at sustaining Britain's great power status-in relation to the Soviet Union and the United States-at a time when its own economic power was declining. In particular, after October 1951 Churchill sought to revive with President Eisenhower and with Stalin's successors in Soviet Russia the "Big Three" summitry he saw as the most effective means to forestall a nuclear holocaust and achieve a lasting peace.

Based on an exhaustive scrutiny of official documents and private archives in Europe and the United States, this book breaks vital new ground in terms of both Churchill scholarship and the international history of the Cold War.

Average customer rating:

Great balanced work

A good, cheap read.

Misses the Mark. Not Recommended

Absolutely Brilliant

Not un-biased

The Cold War: A History
Martin Walker
Manufacturer: Owl Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0805034544

Customer Reviews:

Great balanced work.......2006-12-15

While there are many books on the Cold war this one has to be the best. It is the only book I have read that uses voluminous research from not only the American side but the Russian side as well. If you are looking for that fair and balanced viewpoint than this is the place to start. Walker writes very well and covers the relevant aspects of the war including détente. It focuses mostly on the power that the two exhibit and sticks with diplomatic history. There is some discussion of third world (with the exception of Cuba, Vietnam and Egypt) otherwise it really focuses on Europe. Nonetheless it deserves its five stars and is the only book I ever recommend when someone wants to read about the cold war.

A good, cheap read........2006-04-17

Before I describe this book, the following needs to be said: This is not a military or Soviet history of the cold war.

That being said, this book is a fine economic and diplomatic history of the Cold War, from an Anglo-American perspective. Whild that may sound like a narrowly-focused book, it really is not, as the author uses well-placed juxtpositions and anecdotes that track the shifting attitudes of NATO Countries and the Soviet Union throughout the war. Particularly interesting is the analysis of each side's economy and the US-USSR tendency to try to bluff each other out.

Reading this book requires sketchy knowledge of the military history of the war.

While there are certainly newer and better general-histories, the unique angle of this book, combined with its bargain price due to age, makes it a great and enlightening read.

Misses the Mark. Not Recommended.......2005-05-26

Instead, I highly recommend the masterpiece book on the Cold War called "The Cold War: A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis. Yale professor Gaddis has been a renowned scholar of the Cold War for decades. In contrast, I do not recommend this book by Martin Walker, who is mainly a newspaper journalist. You can do better.

I read the first seventy pages of this book by Walker and stopped reading it because I thought that the author simply did not "get it right." For starters, the book oddly begins at the end of World War II, when the seeds of the Cold War actually started during World War II, and even before that. USA and USSR emerged from WWII as superpower rivals, distrustful of each other.

The author has a poor understanding of Franklin Roosevelt's strategy towards the end of the war, does not explain Stalin's aspirations, and misunderstands the Truman administration's strategy to deal with Stalin, I believe. I also believe that Walker is far too forgiving of authoritarian communism.

Instead, I highly recommend the "The Cold War: A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis. Another great book by Gaddis is "We Now Know."

Another great book on the Cold War is Ronald Powalski's "The Cold War: The United States and the Soviet Union 1917-1991," which begins the story of the Cold War in 1917.

Walker's book is also dated. You can do better.

I also recommend the Pulitzer Prize-winning book called "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire" by David Remnick.

Absolutely Brilliant .......2005-02-19

The most brilliant, unbiased, and usefull book for my history class. I might add it was the also the most enjoyable read of all the textbooks i have ever encountered during my life. I can see how this book may seem biased to all those neo-conservative Americans learning from American books and from Fox news, however to me this (along with Lundestad) was the extremely unbiased. It packs in an amazing amount of information in 350 pages and just blows your mind away. Another judge of the brilliance of the book is the wide variety of sources - from garthoff to Brzezinski to Carter to Johnson to Kruschev and Brezhnev. Hats off to a great achievement. A milestone in history.

Not un-biased.......2004-08-04

Unlike most other reviewers, I find this to be highly biased. This is not a military history of the Cold War, and a more appropriate title would be "An economic history of the Cold War Era", as the author devotes the majority of space to discussions on economic impacts.

Like most other reviewers, I find this book omits highly significant events during the Cold War.

Some examples of the events the author omits, yet are still firmly entrenched in the whole Cold War era:

The author barely acknowledges the Korean War, yet this event has a book-end effect. It was the first major armed conflict of the Cold War, and the DMZ is the last functional relic of the Cold War.

The author presents the Soviet Union as a misunderstood child who's troubles are all to blame on the USA. The author even applauds the Soviet response to the Chernobyl disaster, and makes a side note of the fact that the Soviet Union, for several days, explicitly denied that any event occured. An historical comparison of both nuclear disasters, Chernobyl versus Three Mile Island, might shed more light on the issues involved during the entire Cold War period.

Near the end of the book, the author seems to find a comparison between the USA's penal system to the Stalin era Gulag.

As a final concrete point of bias, the last several pages refer to "the untimely deaths of (Nelson) Mandela and (Yasser) Arafat". What is the point of such a statement? These figures were still alive at the time of publication; or is the author using these fictional events to paint possibilities? For whatever reason the author makes this statement, it adds no value to the book, and lessens the content due to sensationalism.

Ace in the Hole: Why the United States Did Not Use Nuclear Weapons in the Cold War, 1945 to 1965 (Contributions in Military Studies)

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Ace in the Hole: Why the United States Did Not Use Nuclear Weapons in the Cold War, 1945 to 1965 (Contributions in Military Studies)
Timothy J. Botti
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Military Science | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0313299765

Book Description

Using newly released documents, the author presents an integrated look at American nuclear policy and diplomacy in crises from the Berlin blockade to Vietnam. The book answers the question why, when the atomic bomb had been used with such devastating effect against the Japanese Empire in 1945, American leaders put this most apocalyptic of weapons back on the shelf, never to be used again in anger. It documents the myopia of Potomac strategists in involving the U.S. in wars of attrition in Korea and Southeast Asia, marginal areas where American vital interests were in no way endangered. Despite the presence of hundreds, then thousands of nuclear bombs and warheads in the nation's stockpile, the greatest military weapon in history became politically impossible to use. And yet overwhelming nuclear superiority did serve its ultimate purpose in the Cold War. When American vital interests were threatened--over Berlin and Cuba--the Soviets backed down from confrontation. Despite errors in strategic judgment brought on by fear of Communist expansion, and in some cases outright incompetence, the ace in the hole proved decisive.

Unofficial Ambassadors: American Military Families Overseas and the Cold War, 1946-1965

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Unofficial Ambassadors: American Military Families Overseas and the Cold War, 1946-1965
Donna Alvah
Manufacturer: NYU Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0814705014
Release Date: 2007-04-01

Book Description

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"Alvah uses a deft comparison of U.S. policies toward military families--and these women's own ideas about what they were doing--on American bases to reveal how 'soft power' was as crucial as 'hard power' in waging war."
—Cynthia Enloe, author of The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire

"Alvah's impressive and well-written account shines light on a time when American leaders understood that friendship mattered in foreign relations--a lesson well worth learning today."
—Elaine Tyler May, author of Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era

Â“A fascinating, well-researched, and theoretically-informed contribution to the scholarship integrating the personal and political components of AmericaÂ's Cold War empire. Donna AlvahÂ's impressive book traces the contradictions that resulted when some of the half-million American wives and children who were overseas with U.S. military personnel tried to reach out to their German, Okinawan, or other foreign hosts while also affirming the supposed superiority of the American way of life. A natural for courses on foreign relations or gender history.Â”
—Frank Costigliola, author of France and the United States: The Cold Alliance Since World War II

As thousands of wives and children joined American servicemen stationed at overseas bases in the years following World War II, the military family represented a friendlier, more humane side of the United States' campaign for dominance in the Cold War. Wives in particular were encouraged to use their feminine influence to forge ties with residents of occupied and host nations. In this untold story of Cold War diplomacy, Donna Alvah describes how these "unofficial ambassadors" spread the United States' perception of itself and its image of world order in the communities where husbands and fathers were stationed, cultivating relationships with both local people and other military families in private homes, churches, schools, women's clubs, shops, and other places.

Unofficial Ambassadors reminds us that, in addition to soldiers and world leaders, ordinary people make vital contributions to a nation's military engagements. Alvah broadens the scope of the history of the Cold War by analyzing how ideas about gender, family, race, and culture shaped the U.S. military presence abroad.

Dawning of the Cold War: The United States Quest for Order

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Dawning of the Cold War: The United States Quest for Order
Randall B. Woods
Manufacturer: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

ASIN: 1566630479

Book Description

The best comprehensive account in print, Dawning of the Cold War draws on a vast amount of cold war scholarship to examine the issues and forces that shaped the East-West confrontation in the years after World War II. The most satisfactory narrative history we now have of how the Cold War came about in Europe. --John Lewis Gaddis, American Historical Review

The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Krushchev, 1960-1963

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Simply Superlative

The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Krushchev, 1960-1963
Michael R. Beschloss
Manufacturer: Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989

ASIN: 0060981059

Customer Reviews:

Simply Superlative.......2002-12-15

Over a decade has passed since "The Crisis Years" was published. Since then, additional details about The Cuban Missile Crisis as well as JFK's personal life have floated into public view. Yet, despite the availability of this "new" information, even a cursory re-reading of excerpts from "The Crisis Years" confirms how accurate, comprehensive and riveting this account of two Cold War titans remains.

Moving at the fast clip of a smoothly written novel, this exhaustive summary of the Kennedy Years focuses on the thorny foreign policy issues that beset the Kennedy Team, some possibly of their own making. Beschloss does a wonderful job fleshing out the pros and cons of particular policy decisions as well as the personal interactions between the president and some of his key advisers, and offers plenty of nuance with regard to the nature of communications between Washington and Moscow during the Missile Crisis.

Perhaps the biggest single revelation in "The Crisis Years" was JFK's relationship with "Dr. Feelgood" and the extent to which the president was medicated on a regular basis, even as he prepared for the Vienna Summit. In our post-Watergate, post-Clinton era, one wonders whether public disclosure of JFK's steady reliance on pharmaceuticals would have been enough to push Nixon into the "win" column - and what that would have meant in terms of executing plans for the Bay of Pigs invasion, with all its fallout.

Book Description

Television news and the Cold War grew simultaneously in the years following World War II, and their history is deeply intertwined. In order to guarantee sufficient resolve in the American public for a long term arms buildup, defense and security officials turned to the television networks. In need of access to official film and newsmakers to build themselves into serious news organizations, and anxious to prove their loyalty in the age of blacklisting, the network news divisions acted as unofficial state propagandists. This book analyzes the shocking extent of their collaboration.

Average customer rating:

The Hobo Philosopher
Ultimately missed the point
Still the best account of the origins of the Cold War

Shattered Peace: Revised Edition
Daniel Yergin
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0140121773

Customer Reviews:

The Hobo Philosopher.......2007-09-19

This book states rather accurately the reasons, events and the logic for the establishment of the cold war and our present emphasis on our Military Industrial Complex. This was a turning point in American history. Supporters of the conservative type will deny the accuracy of Mr. Yergin's scenario and those who lean more to the left will interpret it as a rather obvious statement of fact.
I think that the book is more than accurate. In fact I would say that the book is a little too conservative and that the truth I would find even further to the left. And if we look at our present day politics we will see that it is deja vu all over again. In fact in today's world it does seem that even Stalinist Russia's view of the U.S. is more accurate than most of us would have liked to believe.

Ultimately missed the point.......2005-01-30

. . . but still worth a Cold War student's time for its wide-ranging source material, and representative perspective.

Yergin's book is long on pointed inference and short on rational argument. He makes his points primarily by choosing his adjectives carefully. The principal impression one is left with is that American policy started the Cold War by misinterpreting Stalin after FDR's demise, and hence sentenced the United States to managing, in perpetuum, a "national security state." (FDR, by contrast, dealt with Stalin as one great power actor to another, unburdened by the "messianism" and "Wilsonian utopianism" with which American foreign policy is so often tagged.)

Certainly the proximate origin of the Cold War lay in the fact that the United States was uneasy with Stalin occupying all of eastern Europe, and objected directly to his attempts to set up, through armed force, Communist regimes in Iran, Turkey, and Greece. Yergin implies that because Stalin approached these efforts methodically and carefully, and drew back when confronted, Truman overreacted in accusing him of trying to take over too much of Europe and Asia. Here Yergin suffers a common myopia among Cold War analysts: an apparent inability to see the link between American pushback, or lack of it, and how far the Soviets chose to go. He prefers to interpret both the US and the USSR as actors motivated mainly by confused internal urges, or so one gathers from the profusion of telling adjectives in his narrative.

Yergin does do the signal service of charting America's course from a nation that pursued "interests," as in the pre-WWII era, to one that based its fundamental posture in the world on permanently-existing "threats." At least one reviewer (Edward M. Luttwak, in "The Train of History," Commentary, August 1977) considers Yergin's conclusions here vacuous and overblown, observing that a "national security state" is something every state is, by definition. But Yergin's contribution is really in pointing out that American policy was at one time made relatively free of that European-style premise; it was the menace of Soviet expansionism and the Cold War that forced us to adopt it. (John Lewis Gaddis' 1982 book, Strategies of Containment, has a much better theoretical discussion of the distinction between basing national policy on interests, and basing it first and foremost on threats.)

Luttwak's review of this book is superb, if you can get your hands on it. (It's collected in his 1980 book Strategy and Politics.) He takes Yergin to task rather severely for including a large amount of "human-interest" material, such as the weather and ceremonial arrangements when FDR arrived at Yalta; and ultimately describes the book as "free of any trace of genuine scholarship." I would give Yergin a little slack on the human-interest front, however. I wouldn't have missed for the world his summary on page 47 of the following exchange between Mrs. Robert Taft and Senator Arthur Vandenberg, then the leading Republican foreign policy spokesman in the Senate:

"Once, urged on by her husband, Mrs. Robert Taft tried to "butter Van up" at a dinner party, but was forced to report that she found the task impossible - `he buttered himself so thoroughly that I really couldn't find a single ungreased spot.' "

Anecdote, and 100 pages of notes and bibliography, make Yergin's book worth your time.

Still the best account of the origins of the Cold War.......1998-07-21

Is this book a 'classic'? If it isn't then I don't know what would qualify for the name. A breath of fresh air when it was first released, it quite nicely debunked the existing interpretations of Liberal National, New Left and (rather fratricidally) the earlier Realist historians. It is meticulously researched and easy to read - it deserves a place on the shelf of every person with an interest in the international affairs of the 20th century, especially as it is now within the price range of most buyers.

Lyndon Johnson's War: America's Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 1945-1965: A Critical Issue

Average customer rating:

The Losing Battle
Not just LBJ'S war...
Hunt formats the "Big Picture".

Lyndon Johnson's War: America's Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 1945-1965: A Critical Issue
Michael H. Hunt
Manufacturer: Hill and Wang
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Vietnam War | Military | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Southeast Asia | Asia | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0809050234

Book Description

The Hill and Wang Critical Issues Series: concise, affordable works on pivotal topics in American history, society, and politics.

Using newly available documents from both American and Vietnamese archives, Hunt reinterprets the values, choices, misconceptions, and miscalculations that shaped the long process of American intervention in Southeast Asia, and renders more comprehensible--if no less troubling--the tangled origins of the war.

Customer Reviews:

The Losing Battle.......2002-01-02

Michael Hunt has written a compact yet thorough history of the U. S. involvement in Vietnam. Hunt's premise, in effect, is that due to ignorance, arrogance, and ethnocentrism, U.S. leaders are prevented from a real understanding of Vietnam before embarking on a series of ultimately tragic decisions.

The title of the work suggests two themes. One, Lyndon Johnson made the crucial decisions and thus made the war his own and is therefore to blame for the resulting quagmire. Two, while it is LBJ's war, it is actually part of a larger struggle, the Cold War, an effort in which the United States ultimately prevailed. This is, perhaps, the proper prism through which Vietnam should be viewed.

This work is particularly strengthened and distinguished by Professor Hunt's exploration of the major criticisms of Lyndon Johnson's prosecution of the Vietnam War. He concludes that Johnson was not candid with the American public, and that he proceeded knowing full well the risks involved. Additionally, while Johnson did go to war with clear goals, utilizing power decisively, he was ultimately strait-jacketed by the times in which he lived.

Not just LBJ'S war..........2000-11-17

This book ... runs just over a hundred pages, but Hunt spends the first half of the book showing how it was Truman, Ike's and Kennedy's War, then writes one chapter on Johnson then a brief conclusion. I agree with his thesis that it was Johnson's war; after all Johnson is responsible for the biggest escalations in the war. There's just not much new or illuminating here.

I found the most useful part of the book to be his description of Kennedy's whiz kids and the energy and enthusiasm they bring to the scenario. But that supports an argument that this was JFK's war even if he didn't live to see it to the end. Ultimately it was a war typical of America's tendency throughout the Cold War to see everything in black and white, freedom vs. totalitarianism. Any President, faced with the same choices and domestic political context, would have made the same decisions.

Hunt formats the "Big Picture"........1998-03-10

This book shows the eagerness of the U.S. to stomp out communism and protect our Asian friends'. It is this parental instinct and portrayal of understanding that all people want to be "american" that led the U.S. into an inconclusive battel. The idea that the North won ater the U.S. withdraw falters the necessity of U.S. intervention.

A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)

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A Captivating, intersesting, and thought provoking book.
A Monumental Achievment
"A Preponderance of Power" Reviewed

A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)
Melvyn Leffler
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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ASIN: 0804719241

Book Description

This is the most comprehensive history to date of the Truman Administration's progressive embroilment in the cold war, and it presents a stunning new interpretation of U.S. national security policy during the formative stages of the Soviet-American rivalry. Illustrated with 15 halftones and 10 maps.

Customer Reviews:

A Captivating, intersesting, and thought provoking book. .......2007-10-01

I found this book to be very interesting and thought provoking. It captured and held my interest from the beginning. To fully understand this book it is essential to have some background about the cold war, its origin and the key players in both the Soviet Union and the Truman Administration.
Marvin Leffler does an outstanding job explaining the origin of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) one the most successful alliances that have endured while other have formed and dissolved. In A Preponderance of Power you will understand how the Marshall Plan or as some know it, The European Recovery Plan, rescued Europe from the twin specters of starvation and Communism. In the book you will learn about key players such as George C. Marshall, a five-star Army general who became the Secretary of State in some of the most critical days of the Cold War and Secretary of Defense in the Korean War. There is also Dean Rusk, a former Rhodes Scholar who possessed a substantial interest in the interlocking nature of political-military affairs.
Yes, this book is a monumental achievement. I intend to purchase Leffler's latest book, For the Soul of Mankind, The Soviet Union, the United States and the Cold War

A Monumental Achievment.......2005-04-18

This is an essential work that clearly outlines the origins of the Cold War. Lefler does a fantastic job of detailing how the Truman administration set the tone of the Cold War and how little attention they paid to the actual threat the Soviet Union posed.

My review, however, is in direct response to the one below this. It seems as though the other review believes that lengthy and difficult to read is a fair criticism for a work of history. I would greatly disagree. It is lengthy to read because it must be, and it is difficult because so is history.

"A Preponderance of Power" Reviewed.......2000-03-28

Melvyn P. Leffler's work is a monumental achievement in the study of the Cold War. The book is the result of over twelve years of research. The author's access to the newly available archived materials makes the volume invaluable to students of the Cold War. The book is lengthy and sometimes difficult to read, however, it will remain, for some time as a cornerstone for the understanding of U.S.-Soviet relations during this period.

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