Download or read book Foundations of the American Century written by Inderjeet Parmar and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-03 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inderjeet Parmar reveals the complex interrelations, shared mindsets, and collaborative efforts of influential public and private organizations in the building of American hegemony. Focusing on the involvement of the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations in U.S. foreign affairs, Parmar traces the transformation of America from an "isolationist" nation into the world's only superpower, all in the name of benevolent stewardship. Parmar begins in the 1920s with the establishment of these foundations and their system of top-down, elitist, scientific giving, which focused more on managing social, political, and economic change than on solving modern society's structural problems. Consulting rare documents and other archival materials, he recounts how the American intellectuals, academics, and policy makers affiliated with these organizations institutionalized such elitism, which then bled into the machinery of U.S. foreign policy and became regarded as the essence of modernity. America hoped to replace Britain in the role of global hegemon and created the necessary political, ideological, military, and institutional capacity to do so, yet far from being objective, the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations often advanced U.S. interests at the expense of other nations. Incorporating case studies of American philanthropy in Nigeria, Chile, and Indonesia, Parmar boldly exposes the knowledge networks underwriting American dominance in the twentieth century.

Download or read book Why the American Century written by Olivier Zunz and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2000-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preface: "The New Colossus"Pt. 1: Making the Century AmericanCh. 1: Producers, Brokers, and Users of Knowledge Ch. 2: Defining Tools of Social Intelligence Ch. 3: Inventing the Average American Pt. 2: The Social Contract of the MarketCh. 4: Turning out Consumers Ch. 5: Deradicalizing Class Pt. 3: Embattled IdentitiesCh. 6: From Voluntarism to Pluralism Ch. 7: Enlarging the Polity Pt. 4: Exporting American Principles Ch. 8: Individualism and Modernization Ch. 9: The Power of Uncertainty Acknowledgments Notes Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Download or read book The Rise and Decline of the American Century written by William O. Walker III and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No detailed description available for "The Rise and Decline of the American Century".

Download or read book Creating the American Century written by Martin J. Sklar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-05 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late historian Martin J. Sklar's analysis of how modernizing worldwide development has been the focus of US foreign policy.

Download or read book Building the Next American Century written by Kent H. Hughes and published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press. This book was released on 2005-02-09 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collaboration between the public and private sectors helped the U.S. economy recover from its last period of economic malaise, and similar collaboration is needed today, according to a key participant in the 1980s–1990s competitiveness movement. In Building the Next American Century, Kent H. Hughes describes that movement, beginning with the conditions that stimulated it: stagflation in the early 1970s, declines in manufactured exports, and challenges from German and Japanese manufacturers. The United States responded with monetary and fiscal reform, technological innovation, and formation of a culture of lifelong learning. Although a great deal of leadership came from government, a new sense of partnership with the private sector and its leaders was crucial. Hughes attributes much of the national prosperity of the late 1990s to contributions from the private sectors. Hughes argues that a twenty-first-century competitiveness strategy with a system-wide approach to innovation, learning, and global engagement can meet today's challenges, even in the demanding environment shaped by national security concerns after 9/11.

Download or read book Is the American Century Over written by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a century, the United States has been the world's most powerful state. Now some analysts predict that China will soon take its place. Does this mean that we are living in a post-American world? Will China's rapid rise spark a new Cold War between the two titans? In this compelling essay, world renowned foreign policy analyst, Joseph Nye, explains why the American century is far from over and what the US must do to retain its lead in an era of increasingly diffuse power politics. America's superpower status may well be tempered by its own domestic problems and China's economic boom, he argues, but its military, economic and soft power capabilities will continue to outstrip those of its closest rivals for decades to come.

Download or read book The American Essay in the American Century written by Ned Stuckey-French and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In modern culture, the essay is often considered an old-fashioned, unoriginal form of literary styling. The word essay brings to mind the uninspired five-paragraph theme taught in schools around the country or the antiquated, Edwardian meanderings of English gentlemen rattling on about art and old books. These connotations exist despite the fact that Americans have been reading and enjoying personal essays in popular magazines for decades, engaging with a multitude of ideas through this short-form means of expression. To defend the essay—that misunderstood staple of first-year composition courses—Ned Stuckey-French has written The American Essay in the American Century. This book uncovers the buried history of the American personal essay and reveals how it played a significant role in twentieth-century cultural history. In the early 1900s, writers and critics debated the “death of the essay,” claiming it was too traditional to survive the era’s growing commercialism, labeling it a bastion of British upper-class conventions. Yet in that period, the essay blossomed into a cultural force as a new group of writers composed essays that responded to the concerns of America’s expanding cosmopolitan readership. These essays would spark the “magazine revolution,” giving a fresh voice to the ascendant middle class of the young century. With extensive research and a cultural context, Stuckey-French describes the many reasons essays grew in appeal and importance for Americans. He also explores the rise of E. B. White, considered by many the greatest American essayist of the first half of the twentieth century whose prowess was overshadowed by his success in other fields of writing. White’s work introduced a new voice, creating an American essay that melded seriousness and political resolve with humor and self-deprecation. This book is one of the first to consider and reflect on the contributions of E. B. White to the personal essay tradition and American culture more generally. The American Essay in the American Century is a compelling, highly readable book that illuminates the history of a secretly beloved literary genre. A work that will appeal to fiction readers, scholars, and students alike, this book offers fundamental insight into modern American literary history and the intersections of literature, culture, and class through the personal essay. This thoroughly researched volume dismisses, once and for all, the “death of the essay,” proving that the essay will remain relevant for a very long time to come.

Download or read book Henry R Luce Time and the American Crusade in Asia written by Robert E. Herzstein and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-07-18 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Henry R. Luce used his famous magazines to advance his interventionist agenda.

Download or read book Japan in the American Century written by Kenneth B. Pyle and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No nation was more deeply affected by America’s rise to world power than Japan. President Franklin Roosevelt’s uncompromising policy of unconditional surrender led to the catastrophic finale of the Asia-Pacific War and the most intrusive international reconstruction of another nation in modern history. Japan in the American Century examines how Japan, with its deeply conservative heritage, responded to the imposition of a new liberal order. The price Japan paid to end the occupation was a cold war alliance with the United States that ensured America’s dominance in the region. Still traumatized by its wartime experience, Japan developed a grand strategy of dependence on U.S. security guarantees so that the nation could concentrate on economic growth. Yet from the start, despite American expectations, Japan reworked the American reforms to fit its own circumstances and cultural preferences, fashioning distinctively Japanese variations on capitalism, democracy, and social institutions. Today, with the postwar world order in retreat, Japan is undergoing a sea change in its foreign policy, returning to an activist, independent role in global politics not seen since 1945. Distilling a lifetime of work on Japan and the United States, Kenneth Pyle offers a thoughtful history of the two nations’ relationship at a time when the character of that alliance is changing. Japan has begun to pull free from the constraints established after World War II, with repercussions for its relations with the United States and its role in Asian geopolitics.

Download or read book Brazil s Revolution in Commerce written by James P. Woodard and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James P. Woodard's history of consumer capitalism in Brazil, today the world's fifth most populous country, is at once magisterial, intimate, and penetrating enough to serve as a history of modern Brazil itself. It tells how a new economic outlook took hold over the course of the twentieth century, a time when the United States became Brazil's most important trading partner and the tastemaker of its better-heeled citizens. In a cultural entangling with the United States, Brazilians saw Chevrolets and Fords replace horse-drawn carriages, railroads lose to a mania for cheap automobile roads, and the fabric of everyday existence rewoven as commerce reached into the deepest spheres of family life. The United States loomed large in this economic transformation, but American consumer culture was not merely imposed on Brazilians. By the seventies, many elements once thought of as American had slipped their exotic traces and become Brazilian, and this process illuminates how the culture of consumer capitalism became a more genuinely transnational and globalized phenomenon. This commercial and cultural turn is the great untold story of Brazil's twentieth century, and one key to its twenty-first.

Download or read book DDT and the American Century written by David Kinkela and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2011-11-07 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praised for its ability to kill insects effectively and cheaply and reviled as an ecological hazard, DDT continues to engender passion across the political spectrum as one of the world's most controversial chemical pesticides. In DDT and the American Century, David Kinkela chronicles the use of DDT around the world from 1941 to the present with a particular focus on the United States, which has played a critical role in encouraging the global use of the pesticide. Kinkela's study offers a unique approach to understanding both this contentious chemical and modern environmentalism in an international context.

Download or read book The End of the American Century written by David Stewart Mason and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling and persuasive book is the first to explore all of the interrelated aspects of America's decline. Hard-hitting and provocative, yet measured and clearly written, The End of the American Century demonstrates the phases of social, economic, and international decline that mark the end of a period of world dominance that began with World War II. The costs of the war on terror and the Iraq War have exacerbated the already daunting problems of debt, poverty, inequality, and political and social decay. David S. Mason convincingly argues that the United States, like other great powers in the past, is experiencing the dilemma of "imperial overstretch"--bankrupting the home front in pursuit of costly and fruitless foreign ventures. The author shows that elsewhere in the world, the United States is no longer admired as a model for democracy and economic development; indeed, it is often feared or resented. He compares the United States and its accomplishments with other industrialized democracies and potential rivals. The European Union is more stable in economic and social terms, and countries like India and China are more economically dynamic. These and other nations will soon eclipse the United States, signaling a fundamental transformation of the global scene. This transition will require huge adjustments for American citizens and political leaders alike. But in the end, Americans--and the world--will be better off with a less profligate, more interdependent United States. More information is available on the author's website.

Download or read book Man of Destiny written by Alonzo L Hamby and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an acclaimed historian comes an authoritative and balanced biography of FDR, based on previously untapped sources No president looms larger in twentieth-century American history than Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and few life stories can match his for sheer drama. Following in the footsteps of his Republican cousin President Theodore Roosevelt, FDR devoted himself to politics as a Democrat and a true man of the people. Eventually setting his sights on the presidency, he was elected to office in 1932 by a nation that was mired in the Great Depression and desperate for revival. As the distinguished historian Alonzo Hamby argues in this authoritative biography, FDR's record as president was more mixed than we are often led to believe. The New Deal provided much-needed assistance to millions of Americans, but failed to restore prosperity, and while FDR became an outstanding commander-in-chief during World War II, his plans for the postwar world were seriously flawed. No less perceptive is Hamby's account of FDR's private life, which explores the dynamics of his marriage and his romance with his wife's secretary, Lucy Mercer. Hamby documents FDR's final months in intimate detail, claiming that his perseverance, despite his serious illness, not only shaped his presidency, but must be counted as one of the twentieth century's great feats of endurance. Hamby reveals a man whose personality -- egocentric, undisciplined in his personal appetites, at times a callous user of aides and associates, yet philanthropic and caring for his nation's underdogs-shaped his immense legacy. Man of Destiny is a measured account of the life, both personal and public, of the most important American leader of the twentieth century.

Download or read book Arthur Vandenberg written by Hendrik Meijer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea that a Senator would put the greater good of the country ahead of his party seems nearly impossible to imagine in our current political climate. Originally the editor and publisher of the Grand Rapids Herald, Vandenberg was elected to the Senate in 1928, and became an outspoken opponent of the New Deal and a leader among the isolationists who resisted FDR's efforts to aid European allies at the onset of World War II. Meijer shows that Vandenberg worked closely with Democratic administrations to build the strong bipartisan consensus that established the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and NATO.

Download or read book Henry Kissinger and the American Century written by Jeremi Suri and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What made Henry Kissinger the kind of diplomat he was? What experiences and influences shaped his worldview and provided the framework for his approach to international relations? Jeremi Suri offers a thought-provoking, interpretive study of one of the most influential and controversial political figures of the twentieth century. Drawing on research in more than six countries in addition to extensive interviews with Kissinger and others, Suri analyzes the sources of Kissinger's ideas and power and explains why he pursued the policies he did. Kissinger's German-Jewish background, fears of democratic weakness, belief in the primacy of the relationship between the United States and Europe, and faith in the indispensable role America plays in the world shaped his career and his foreign policy. Suri shows how Kissinger's early years in Weimar and Nazi Germany, his experiences in the U.S. Army and at Harvard University, and his relationships with powerful patrons--including Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon--shed new light on the policymaker. Kissinger's career was a product of the global changes that made the American Century. He remains influential because his ideas are rooted so deeply in dominant assumptions about the world. In treating Kissinger fairly and critically as a historical figure, without polemical judgments, Suri provides critical context for this important figure. He illuminates the legacies of Kissinger's policies for the United States in the twenty-first century.

Download or read book Twilight of the American Century written by Andrew J. Bacevich and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Bacevich is a leading American public intellectual, writing in the fields of culture and politics with particular attention to war and America’s role in the world. Twilight of the American Century is a collection of his selected essays written since 9/11. In these essays, Bacevich critically examines the U.S. response to the events of September 2001, as they have played out in the years since, radically affecting the way Americans see themselves and their nation’s place in the world. Bacevich is the author of nearly a dozen books and contributes to a wide variety of publications, including Foreign Affairs, The Nation, Commonweal, Harper’s, and the London Review of Books. His op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among other newspapers. Prior to becoming an academic, he was a professional soldier. His experience as an Army officer informs his abiding concern regarding the misuse of American military power and the shortcomings of the U.S. military system. As a historian, he has tried to see the past differently, thereby making it usable to the present. Bacevich combines the perspective of a scholar with the background of a practitioner. His views defy neat categorization as either liberal or conservative. He belongs to no “school.” His voice and his views are distinctive, provocative, and refreshing. Those with a focus on political and cultural developments and who have a critical interest in America's role in the world will be keenly interested in this book.

Download or read book Modernizing Repression written by Jeremy Kuzmarov and published by Univ of Massachusetts Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A probing analysis of the impact of American policing operations abroad