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Title: Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 by Stephen E. Ambrose, Douglas Brinkley ISBN: 0-14-026831-6 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: September, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.3 (23 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Wrong Impressions
Comment: I am older than Ambrose would be if he had lived until today. I remember WWII well. So I was curious to read this book which was among my son's college materials. I didn't get beyond the introduction. I had enough right there.
Mr. Ambrose is indeed a facile writer. But the wrong impressions begin in the very first paragraph. America felt secure in 1938. Isolationism, an organized "head in the sand" foreign policy, was the popular opinion. In Europe we believed that "it's their fight." We don't have to get involved. In the Pacific we never seemed to get the point. Great Amereicans like Jack London and General Billy Mitchell told us that Japan was going to attack. But it was easier not to believe it.
The American leaders, including most especially our political and intellectual leaders, failed to understand what was happening in the world. America was unprepared for the "real world" of 1938. A huge war broke out. A war that America might have prevented. Prevention would have required that we join the League of Nations and play the World role that our economic power called for after World War I. Instead many thousands of Americans and millions around the world died in the '30's & 40's.
After the war with the very real threat of Stalin facing the world we began to play the World role that we alone could play. First the Marshall plan rebuilt Europe and American aid put Japan back in business. As for power politics We were new at it. All in all I think we did well. The Soviet Union with its Comintern and its Gulags collapsed. Yet the clear impression left by Ambrose's comments on post WWII political and military policy suggests only a clumsy or even arrogant American overkill. Ambrose's comments are without even a hint that we might have done a few things both right and important.
There are many other wrong impressions but perhaps the most colossal is the complete absence of any recognition of the world changing economic and technical leadership of the U. S. over those same 50 years. This leadership has improved living standards and the general well being of hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. There is plenty left to do. But nations like India, China and Korea, where bare existence or starvation had been the rule, today prosperity is steadily increasing. Somehow these facts apparently we not "history" as Mr. Ambrose saw it.
But he does think it historically notable that during those 50 years WE were doing well economically (and no one else?) because of the "arms race" and "cheap" raw materials. He must have misplaced information on entrepreneurial investment and the development of new technologies. But he did find evidence that during those 50 years "Businessmen looked for profitable markets...the military looked for overseas bases" suggesting only a grasping selfishness
Mr. Ambrose has raised my curiosity. But I am going to look for a more reliable source of historical information about these critically important years.
Rating: 5
Summary: A first-rate overview
Comment: Ambrose's survey of U.S. foreign policy since 1938 is rigorous and informative. It is one of the few works of its subject and scope capable of captivating beginners and scholars alike. The development of key topics, most notably U.S. policy toward the Middle East and Vietnam, is impressive considering the book's breadth. Only on very few occasions does Ambrose's broad brush fail to discuss adequately the roots and ramifications of U.S. intervention, particularly in Guatemala and Iran. On the whole, however, it is the best book of its kind available.
Those longing for an explanation of U.S. policy through caricatures of demonic presidents and ruthless capitalism will (or should) be somewhat disappointed. The story we read here is, rather, the tale of a nation rising to become the world's greatest power in much the same way as others have throughout history. Of the presidents, even the most dishonest (Nixon) and frightening (Reagan) are depicted as they were: leaders of their times very much imbued--often unfortunately for the rest of the world--with assumptions accepted by most of their fellow Americans.
Rating: 1
Summary: Used to be good, but now . . .
Comment: Since the death of Stephen Ambrose, Penguin has hired Douglas G. Brinkley to 'update' the book. It now contains such nonsense as the "1980 October Surprise," the much investigated and thoroughly discredited claim that Reagan and Khomenei conspired to keep the hostages seized in 1979 captive till after the election.
With nonsense like this in it, one can no longer trust anything in the book. Therefore, the 8th edition should not be purchased or used for anything but birdcage liner.
With luck, there will be a ninth edition revised by someone sane, but till then, buy and use only editions 1-7.
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Title: Secrecy: The American Experience by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Richard Gid Powers ISBN: 0300080794 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Affair of Honor Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Veracruz by Robert E. Quirk ISBN: 0393003906 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: January, 1967 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Perils of Prosperity 1914-1932 (Chicago History of American Civilization) by William E. Leuchtenburg, Daniel J. Boorstin ISBN: 0226473716 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: September, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: American Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays (4th Edition) by G. John Ikenberry ISBN: 0321084721 Publisher: Pearson Longman Pub. Date: 01 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $73.00 |
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Title: American Diplomacy: The Twentieth Century by Robert H. Ferrell ISBN: 0393956091 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: December, 1987 List Price(USD): $28.40 |
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