Download or read book The Concept totalitarianism and American Foreign Policy 1933 1949 written by Thomas Elmer Lifka and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Totalitarianisms The Closed Society and Its Friends A History of Crossed Languages written by Juan Francisco Fuentes and published by Ed. Universidad de Cantabria. This book was released on 2019-04-29 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is striking that the main political concept coined by the century of democracy has been totalitarianism. Since its birth in fascist Italy in the 1920s, the term has made a long journey throughout different countries and periods. After representing the fascination for dictatorships during the interwar years, totalitarianism became a key concept of the ‘war of words’ waged between democracy and communism until the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was ‘a hot word for a Cold War’, as termed by the author of this book to convey the importance of this contest of crossed languages, which also included images, symbols and other forms of ‘senso-propaganda’. The Closed Society and Its Friendshighlights the role played by language in the building of a dystopian civilization conceived as an alternative to the open society created by liberalism. The book analyses the dimension of totalitarianisms, from fascism and Nazism to communism, as political religions with some common features, such as the cult of personality and the conception of society as a community of believers. This fascinating essay on the dark side of the 20th century ends with a disturbing epilogue: ‘Is totalitarianism back?’

Download or read book Liberalism in the Shadow of Totalitarianism written by David Ciepley and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that it was primarily the encounter with totalitarianism that dissolved the ideals of American progressivism and crystallized the ideals of postwar liberalism. In politics, the ideal of governance by a strong, independent executive was rejected and a politics of contending interest groups was embraced.

Download or read book Totalitarianism written by Abbott Gleason and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-03-20 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than six decades, the term "totalitarian" was applied to everything from Franco's Spain to Stalin's Soviet Union. One of the most enigmatic and yet compelling ideas of our time, it has been both an almost meaningless political catcall and an indispensable concept for understanding the dictatorships that have marred the history of this century. Now historian Abbott Gleason provides a fascinating account of the life of this idea. Totalitarianism offers a penetrating chronicle of the central concept of our era--an era shaped by our conflict first with fascism and then with communism. Interweaving the story of intellectual debates with the international history of the twentieth century, Gleason traces the birth of the term to Italy in the first years of Mussolini's rule. Created by Mussolini's enemies, the word was appropriated by the Fascists themselves to describe their program in what turned out to be one of the less totalitarian of the European dictatorships. He follows the growth and expansion of the concept as it was picked up in the West and applied to Hitler's Germany and the Soviet Union. Gleason's account takes us through the debates of the early postwar years, as academics in turn adopted the term--notably Hannah Arendt. The idea of totalitarianism came to possess novelists such as Arthur Koestler (Darkness at Noon) and George Orwell (whose Nineteen Eighty-Four was interpreted by conservatives as an attack on socialism in general, and subsequently suffered criticism from left-leaning critics). The concept fully entered the public consciousness with the opening of the Cold War, as Truman used the rhetoric of totalitarianism to sell the Truman Doctrine to Congress. Gleason takes a fascinating look at the notorious brainwashing episodes of the Korean War, which convinced Americans that Communist China too was a totalitarian state. As he takes his account through to the 1990s, he offers an inner history of the Cold War, revealing the political charge the term carried for writers on both the left and right. He also explores the intellectual struggles that swirled around the idea in France, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. When the Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s, Gleason writes, the concept lost much of its importance in the West even as it flourished in Russia, where writers began to describe their own collapsing state as totalitarian--though left-wing Western thinkers had long resisted doing so. Abbott Gleason is a leading scholar of Soviet and Russian history and a contributor to periodicals ranging from The Russian Review to The Atlantic Monthly. In this stimulating intellectual history, he offers a revealing look at one of the central concepts of modern times.

Download or read book Fascism Comes to America written by Bruce Kuklick and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-11-22 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deeply relevant look at what fascism means to Americans. From the time Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922, Americans have been obsessed with and brooded over the meaning of fascism and how it might migrate to the United States. Fascism Comes to America examines how we have viewed fascism overseas and its implications for our own country. Bruce Kuklick explores the rhetoric of politicians, who have used the language of fascism to smear opponents, and he looks at the discussions of pundits, the analyses of academics, and the displays of fascism in popular culture, including fiction, radio, TV, theater, and film. Kuklick argues that fascism has little informational meaning in the United States, but instead, it is used to denigrate or insult. For example, every political position has been besmirched as fascist. As a result, the term does not describe a phenomenon so much as it denounces what one does not like. Finally, in displaying fascism for most Americans, entertainment—and most importantly film—has been crucial in conveying to citizens what fascism is about. Fascism Comes to America has been enhanced by many illustrations that exhibit how fascism was absorbed into the US public consciousness.

Download or read book The Unpredictability of the Past written by Marc Gallicchio and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-21 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Unpredictability of the Past, an international group of historians examines how collective memories of the Asia-Pacific War continue to affect relations among China, Japan, and the United States. The contributors are primarily concerned with the history of international relations broadly conceived to encompass not only governments but also nongovernmental groups and organizations that influence the interactions of peoples across the Pacific. Taken together, the essays provide a rich, multifaceted analysis of how the dynamic interplay between past and present is manifest in policymaking, popular culture, public commemorations, and other arenas. The contributors interpret mass media sources, museum displays, monuments, film, and literature, as well as the archival sources traditionally used by historians. They explore how American ideas about Japanese history shaped U.S. occupation policy following Japan’s surrender in 1945, and how memories of the Asia-Pacific War influenced Washington and Tokyo policymakers’ reactions to the postwar rise of Soviet power. They investigate topics from the resurgence of Pearl Harbor images in the U.S. media in the decade before September 11, 2001, to the role of Chinese war museums both within China and in Chinese-Japanese relations, and from the controversy over the Smithsonian Institution’s Enola Gay exhibit to Japanese tourists’ reactions to the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. One contributor traces how a narrative commemorating African Americans’ military service during World War II eclipsed the history of their significant early-twentieth-century appreciation of Japan as an ally in the fight against white supremacy. Another looks at the growing recognition and acknowledgment in both the United States and Japan of the Chinese dimension of World War II. By focusing on how memories of the Asia-Pacific War have been contested, imposed, resisted, distorted, and revised, The Unpredictability of the Past demonstrates the crucial role that interpretations of the past play in the present. Contributors. Marc Gallicchio, Waldo Heinrichs, Haruo Iguchi, Xiaohua Ma, Frank Ninkovich, Emily S. Rosenberg, Takuya Sasaki, Yujin Yaguchi, Daqing Yang

Download or read book Imagining Judeo Christian America written by K. Healan Gaston and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-11-13 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Judeo-Christian” is a remarkably easy term to look right through. Judaism and Christianity obviously share tenets, texts, and beliefs that have strongly influenced American democracy. In this ambitious book, however, K. Healan Gaston challenges the myth of a monolithic Judeo-Christian America. She demonstrates that the idea is not only a recent and deliberate construct, but also a potentially dangerous one. From the time of its widespread adoption in the 1930s, the ostensible inclusiveness of Judeo-Christian terminology concealed efforts to promote particular conceptions of religion, secularism, and politics. Gaston also shows that this new language, originally rooted in arguments over the nature of democracy that intensified in the early Cold War years, later became a marker in the culture wars that continue today. She argues that the debate on what constituted Judeo-Christian—and American—identity has shaped the country’s religious and political culture much more extensively than previously recognized.

Download or read book A Preponderance of Power National Security the Truman Administration and the Cold War written by Melvyn P. Leffler and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 843 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States the Cold War shaped our political culture, our institutions, and our national priorities. Abroad, it influenced the destinies of people everywhere. It divided Europe, split Germany, and engulfed the Third World. It led to a feverish arms race and massive sales of military equipment to poor nations. For at least four decades it left the world in a chronic state of tension where a miscalculation could trigger nuclear holocaust. Documents, oral histories, and memoirs illuminating the goals, motives, and fears of contemporary U.S. officials were already widely circulated and studied during the Cold War, but in the 1970s a massive declassification of documents from the Army, Navy, Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Department of Defense, and some intelligence agencies reinvigorated historical study of this war which became the definitive conflict of its time. While many historians used these records to explore specialized topics, Melvyn Leffler marshals in this book the considerable available evidence to offer an overall analysis of national security policy during the Truman years and a comprehensive history of that administration’s progressive embroilment in the Cold War. A Preponderance of Power won the 1992 Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize sponsored by The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), the 1992 Herbert Hoover Book Award sponsored by The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association and the 1993 Bancroft Prize sponsored by the Friends of the Columbia Libraries. “Each generation, if it is lucky, is given a book that becomes standard for one of the turning-point eras in American history. The immediate post-1945 years certainly were such an era, and Leffler’s work is such a book. Having exhausted the U.S. records, taken the globe as his province, and exploited the perspective of Communism’s recent collapse, he has written the account from which others must move if they are to contribute to our further understanding of these origins of the cold war.” — Walter LaFeber, Noll Professor of History, Cornell University “This is a magnificent book. It transcends forty years of historical writing about the origins of the cold war and the evolution of the Truman administration’s policies. Scrupulously documented, it will inevitably become the intellectual fulcrum around which all discussions, arguments, and revisions of cold war historiography henceforth will turn.” — Martin J. Sherwin, Dickson Professor of History, Director of the Nuclear Age History and Humanities Center, Tufts University “This bold, persuasive book puts the self-conscious expansion of U.S. power where it belongs — at the center of cold war tensions. Leffler effectively establishes that the ‘wise men’ had a coherent world view, devised a grand strategy to satisfy it, and extended U.S. power abroad to meet threats they exaggerated. A gem of a book.” —Thomas G. Paterson, Professor of History, University of Connecticut “Leffler’s panoramic survey of global developments offers an important reassessment of American policy in the early cold war — one that sees American policy driven as much by an expansive definition of national security as by the threat of Soviet imperialism. As the cold war comes to an end, Leffler presents a fresh appraisal of its origins.” — Michael J. Hogan, Professor of History, Ohio State University, Editor, Diplomatic History “Magisterial... This book is without question a major achievement. It is a masterly work of synthesis, weaving together in a single coherent study the various and often contradictory trends in previous historical writing on the Cold War’s origins. It is indefatigably researched... and most important, it is an intellectually honest work... A fine book.” — The Atlantic “A brilliant new book... An invaluable contribution.” — The Nation “[A Preponderance of Power] remains today [November 2013] the (so-far) definitive history of US behavior in the Cold War” — Eric Alterman, The Nation “The best book to date on the Truman administration and the origins of the Cold War.” — Detroit Free Press “A Preponderance of Power will be of immense value to scholars interested in the grand strategy of the Truman administration. Leffler has combined a solid grasp of secondary material with a comprehensive and very carefully documented analysis of primary sources, including a vast array of previously classified documents. The result is not only a more complete record of U.S. policymakers’ thinking about national security but also a more nuanced and sophisticated reconstruction of their concerns and objectives” — Alan C. Lamborn, American Political Science Review “A monumental work, rich in information and insights.” — R.C. Grogin, Canadian Journal of History “This massive distillation of the perceptions and policy prescriptions of the national security establishment of the Truman years... is policy history based on years of exhaustive research in government archives and private papers... Leffler’s judgment on Truman’s men and their work is favorable: they were sometimes very wise, nearly always prudent... and foolish primarily in overvaluing the strategic importance of peripheral areas.” — Gaddis Smith, Foreign Affairs “A good, indeed excellent, narrative history, straightforward and chronological... As a comprehensive and well-documented narrative of the Truman administration’s response to historic challenges beyond our shores, this book will prove indispensable as an up-to-date guide to further research.” — George Botjer, History “Leffler’s magisterial history of U.S. security policy in the Truman administration... will be widely appealing to political scientists and others grappling with issues in U.S. postwar security and foreign economic policy... Leffler has achieved a powerful synthesis of competing explanations of U.S. Cold War policy and has strongly elucidated U.S. grand strategy... A Preponderance of Power is a highly ambitious, thoughtful, and important work of scholarship, indisputably the outstanding historical synthesis of U.S. foreign policy in the early Cold War era.” — Lynn Eden,International Security “A remarkable piece of work. The book’s sweep is encyclopedic: it covers both military and foreign policy for the entire period from 1945 to January 1953, and deals systematically with American policy in all the important areas of the world--eastern and western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and the Far East as well. The book is based on a vast amount of archival research...” — Marc Trachtenhexg, Orbis “What sets Leffler’s work apart from that of most of his predecessors is not only its comprehensive coverage of Cold War issues, its exhaustive — at least in American sources — research, and incisive prose, but also the effective integration of political, ideological, economic and strategic analysis.” — Stephen J. Randall, International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis “Massive, brilliant post-glasnost analysis of early cold-war realities... This study of how Truman dealt with a world sealed off to him by FDR is a book and a half.” — Kirkus “Offering a new slant on the early years of the Cold War, this major reassessment traces the development of national security policy during the Truman administration. Based on a rich vein of recently declassified material, Leffler’s majestic study describes how Harry Truman and his advisers sought to mobilize America’s power in order to deal with the dangers of the postwar world and create a global environment hospitable to U.S. interests and values.” — Publishers Weekly “In examining the formulation of policy during the Truman administration, Leffler concentrates on the small group of (now unfashionably elite, white, and male) individuals who exercised decision-making responsibility in the late 1940s and early 1950s... We get to know Leffler’s main characters—Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, Nitze, James Forrestal, John McCloy, and half a dozen others—very well. We learn how they saw the world and what they aimed to accomplish... Leffler’s book, [...] is by far the best on its subject.” — H. W. Brands, American Historical Review “Leffler’s timely book is the product of more than a dozen years of prodigious research and patient investigations into many recently available collections of documents. The result is a valuable assessment of prudent policymakers who formulated the blueprints for US Cold War strategies... Leffler’s interpretation will remain a standard resource for years to come.” — S. Prisco III, Choice Review

Download or read book Dictators Democracy and American Public Culture written by Benjamin Leontief Alpers and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on portrayals of Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, and Stalin's Russia in U.S. films, magazine and newspaper articles, books, plays, speeches, and other texts, Benjamin Alpers traces changing American understandings of dictatorship from the la

Download or read book Modernity and Power written by Frank Ninkovich and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1994-11-15 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modernity and Power provides a fresh conceptual overview of twentieth-century United States foreign policy, from the Roosevelt and Taft administrations through the presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson. Beginning with Woodrow Wilson, American leaders gradually abandoned the idea of international relations as a game of geopolitical interplays, basing their diplomacy instead on a symbolic opposition between "world public opinion" and the forces of destruction and chaos. Frank Ninkovich provocatively links this policy shift to the rise of a distinctly modernist view of history. To emphasize the central role of symbolism and ideological assumptions in twentieth-century American statesmanship, Ninkovich focuses on the domino theory—a theory that departed radically from classic principles of political realism by sanctioning intervention in world regions with few financial or geographic claims on the national interest. Ninkovich insightfully traces the development of this global strategy from its first appearance early in the century through the Vietnam war. Throughout the book, Ninkovich draws on primary sources to recover the worldview of the policy makers. He carefully assesses the coherence of their views rather than judge their actions against "objective" realities. Offering a new alternative to realpolitic and economic explanations of foreign policy, Modernity and Power will change the way we think about the history of U.S. international relations.

Download or read book The New Deal written by Kiran Klaus Patel and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-12 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first history of the new deal in global context The New Deal: A Global History provides a radically new interpretation of a pivotal period in US history. The first comprehensive study of the New Deal in a global context, the book compares American responses to the international crisis of capitalism and democracy during the 1930s to responses by other countries around the globe—not just in Europe but also in Latin America, Asia, and other parts of the world. Work creation, agricultural intervention, state planning, immigration policy, the role of mass media, forms of political leadership, and new ways of ruling America's colonies—all had parallels elsewhere and unfolded against a backdrop of intense global debates. By avoiding the distortions of American exceptionalism, Kiran Klaus Patel shows how America's reaction to the Great Depression connected it to the wider world. Among much else, the book explains why the New Deal had enormous repercussions on China; why Franklin D. Roosevelt studied the welfare schemes of Nazi Germany; and why the New Dealers were fascinated by cooperatives in Sweden—but ignored similar schemes in Japan. Ultimately, Patel argues, the New Deal provided the institutional scaffolding for the construction of American global hegemony in the postwar era, making this history essential for understanding both the New Deal and America's rise to global leadership.

Download or read book The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East written by Bruce Robellet Kuniholm and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bruce Kuniholm takes a regional perspective to focus on postwar diplomacy in Iran, Turkey, and Greece and efforts in these countries to maintain their independence from the Great Powers. Drawing on a wide variety of secondary sources, government documents, private papers, unpublished memoirs, and extensive interviews with key figures, he shows how the traditional struggle for power along the Northern Tier was a major factor in the origins and development of the Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Download or read book The Long War written by Judy Kutulas and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1930s, the American Communist Party attracted support from a wide range of liberal and radical intellectuals, partly in response to domestic politics, and also in opposition to the growing power of fascism abroad. The Long War, a social history of these intellectuals and their political institutions, tells the story of the rift that developed among the groups loosely organized under the umbrella of the Party--representing communist supporters of the People's Front and those who would become anti-Stalinists--and the evolution of that rift into a generational divide that would culminate in the liberal anti-communism of the post-World War II era. Judy Kutulas takes us into the debates and outright fights between and within the ranks of organizations such as the League of American Writers, the John Reed Clubs, the Committee for Cultural Freedom, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners. Showing how extremist views about the nature and value of communism triumphed over more moderate ones, she traces the transfer of the left's leadership from one generation to the next. She describes how supporters of the People's Front were discredited by the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact and how this opened the way for a new generation of leaders better known as the New York intellectuals. In this shift, Kutulas identifies the beginnings of the liberal anti-communism that would follow World War II. A book for students and scholars of the intersection of politics and culture, The Long War offers a new, informed perspective on the intellectual maneuvers of the American left of the 1930s and leads to a reinterpretation of the time and its complex legacy.

Download or read book Cautious Crusade written by Steven Casey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-11-15 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's struggle against Nazism is one of the few aspects of World War II that has escaped controversy. Historians agree that it was a widely popular war, different from the subsequent conflicts in Korea and Vietnam because of the absence of partisan sniping, ebbing morale, or calls for a negotiated peace. In this provocative book, Steven Casey challenges conventional wisdom about America's participation in World War II. Drawing on the numerous opinion polls and surveys conducted by the U.S. government, he traces the development of elite and mass attitudes toward Germany, from the early days of the war up to its conclusion. Casey persuasively argues that the president and the public rarely saw eye to eye on the nature of the enemy, the threat it posed, or the best methods for countering it. He describes the extensive propaganda campaign that Roosevelt designed to build support for the war effort, and shows that Roosevelt had to take public opinion into account when formulating a host of policies, from the Allied bombing campaign to the Morgenthau plan to pastoralize the Third Reich. By examining the previously unrecognized relationship between public opinion and policy making during World War II, Casey's groundbreaking book sheds new light on a crucial era in American history.

Download or read book Notable U S Ambassadors Since 1775 written by Cathal J. Nolan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1997-10-28 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book spans more than 200 years of U.S. diplomatic history. Its geographical scope widens along with the expanding interests of America itself, from initial exclusive concern with the empires of Europe, to the emerging nations of Latin America, to the commercial opportunities and geopolitical concerns of Asia and Africa. The ambassadors chosen for inclusion reflect these historical changes in American foreign relations. Organized alphabetically, the biographies present an implicit account of the evolution of the U.S. diplomatic service, from its founding and early principles through the 20th century evolution of its habits and culture.

Download or read book Totalitarian Rule written by Hans Buchheim and published by Middletown, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 1968 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Conservatives and Right Radicals in Interwar Europe written by Marco Bresciani and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-30 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book features a broad range of thematic and national case studies which explore the interrelations and confrontations between conservatives and the radical Right in the European and global contexts of the interwar years. It investigates the political, social, cultural, and economic issues that conservatives and radicals tried to address and solve in the aftermaths of the Great War. Conservative forces ended up prevailing over far-right forces in the 1920s, with the notable exception of the Fascist regime in Italy. But over the course of the 1930s, and the ascent of the Nazi regime in Germany, political radicalisation triggered both competition and hybridisation between conservative and right-wing radical forces, with increased power for far-right and fascist movements. The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of politics, history, fascism, and Nazism.