The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation

Book Description

In a substantial new afterword to his classic account of the collapse of American triumphalism in the wake of World War II, Tom Engelhardt carries that story into the twenty-first century. He explores how, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the younger George Bush headed for the Wild West (Osama bin Laden, "Wanted, Dead or Alive"); how his administration brought "victory culture" roaring back as part of its Global War on Terror and its rush to invade Saddam Hussein's Iraq; and how, from its "Mission Accomplished" moment on, its various stories of triumph crashed and burned in that land.

Customer Reviews:

Nice and easy.......2007-08-31

Nice and easy - I was very pleased with the service and timelyness. Plus the book is in great condition

Book Review: "The End of Victory Culture : Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation".......2006-04-10

American "triumphalism" and the American "war story" began its decline after WWII and collapsed completely after Vietnam (or so the author thought). The victory myth is constructed out of an America history that has its roots in the Puritan struggle. The US had always fought against the evil oppressors of freedom, democracy, and the freedom of peaceful worship. The myth of American triumph was part of 1950s "boy culture" and was depicted on screen in the justifiable slaughter of Indians on the western frontier; cowboys and /or Cavalrymen who rescued families and females from savages; science-fiction and vengeance movies, and eventually in galactic villians and Evil Empires. War stories and movies consumed by Baby Boomers vindicated the annihilation of (usually non-white but always non-American) villains.
Central to the maintenance of the victory culture in American is the "war story" a tale in which there is an evil Other who threatens the United States. Contributing to the end of victory culture was the almost immediate reevaluation of the atomic bombing of Japan after WWII; an event that left the United States looking more terrifying than protective . The Cold War followed the euphoric victory of WWII . In the Cold War there was no victory or defeat; and the enemy and self became blurred and threatened to merge. Many of the villains in the Cold War were other Americans; rather than victory, the US sought containment. Then came Korea, a failed police action, better off forgotten. The Vietnam War was a disaster. Even the president lost enthusiasm for a battle where there appeared to be no definable enemy. Even the sacred cowboy was attacked as racist during the d?nouement of the victory culture. New westerns depicted sociopathic bad guys in cowboy hats rampaging around the West hunting down innocent Indians. In the late 1960s, even military toys were transformed into action figures. "Boy culture" was not recaptured until Ronald Reagan appeared on the scene with his Star Wars rhetoric. George H. W. Bush seized on the opportunity to eliminate the evil dictator Saddam Hussein; only to have his efforts to win a "war to re-establish war, American style" and capture the bad guy fail.
Engelhardt is an active journalist and writer who was surprised in 2000 when the United States elected George W. Bush President. Geroge W. Bush, he says, is a man "who had stayed way too long in those dark movie theaters" watching cowboys and Indians; a man who managed to evade both sides of the Vietnam War debate; a man who glories in the victory clture and wants to relive a period in American history when bugles blared, crowds cheered, and flags waved. In The End of Victory Culture Engelhardt failed to predict that 2005 would see a US President whose dream is to "dress up like G.I. Joe, [and] appear in front of massed ranks of soldiers chanting "hoo-rah," and assure the crowd he was going to bring `em back dead or alive (tomdispatch.com). This book's value is in its examination of the impact of popular culture in shaping public perceptions of the US and its place in the world. Sources include popular culture products such as Mad magazine, TV shows, monster movies, and westerns. Tom Engelhardt graduated from Yale University; he is a book editor and a freelance journalist. He maintains a website, www.tomdispatch.com; is co-founder of the American Empire Project; a consulting editor at Metropolitan Books; a fellow of the Nation Institute; and lecturer at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley.

one of my favorites..........2006-03-23

With the outcome in Iraq still uncertain more than 3 years after the U.S. led invasion, many people have blamed the media for not being critical enough at the outset of the war. Additionally, as the war rages on, comparisons to Vietnam are becoming especially noticeable as a growing number of people continue to question our involvement in Iraq.

These two relatively recent phenomena of questioning the media's role in wartime and the tendency for U.S citizens to be skeptical of their government during war took root during the Vietnam war.

According to Tom Englehardt in "The End of Victory Culture," prior to Vietnam the media played a key role in perpetuating the idea of a noble and just United States battling savages of color including Native Americans and Japanese soldiers in World War II.

The public eagerly imbibed this "victory culture," regularly attending movies featuring John Wayne defending America by battling Indians; playing games like "cowboys and indians;" and reading cartoons featuring horribly caricatured Japanese and Chinese soldiers, never questioning the integrity of the government or doubting United States policies.

A seismic shift occured during Vietnam when, for the first time, Americans became especially frustrated over a war that could no longer be justified by statements from the President. Demonstrations raged throughout the country as the once sacred tenants of U.S. heroism and leadership were shattered.

During this time, the media's role transformed as well. Rather than mindlessly trumpeting American nobility, the media worked doggedly to unearth the truth. David Halberstam's coining of the term "quagmire" when referring to war and Morley Saffert's piece revealing the horrible killings of helpless Vietnamese villagers are just two examples that Englehardt cites.

Although accounts from Vietnam and World War II comprise the bulk of Englehardt's thesis, he provides copious examples of the movies and excerpts from television programs when talking about the 1980's in an effort to further demonstrate the dismantling of the "victory culture."

Brilliantly written and extremely well documented, Englehardt has written a gem of a book that remains as relevant today as it was 11 years ago when it was first published.

A different perspective on post-war culture and history.......2006-03-07

Tom Engelhardt's dense but throughly readable cultural history presents the past fifty-six years of American history as an investigation of narrative. A common theme in analysis of nationalism and nationality is the concept of an historical narrative that members of a nationality look to for explaining their present position within their world. Engelhardt investigates a time period that saw, as he argues, a violent uprooting and reconfiguration of the American cultural narrative.

This narrative makes use of a wide ranging set of metpahors and images, such as the frontier and its mythology of American innocence, that have helped Americans understand their position within a complex and ever changing world. World War II provided the last war in which the innocence of America was posited with little debate (although the dropping of the atom bomb indeed challenged this innocence).

The beginning of the cold war and military endeavors in Korea and Viet Nam saw a gradual erroding of this narrative of innocence. As the enemy became harder to identify, at times even looking like ourselves in the case of anti-communism, the moral clarity and absolute innocence of American military actions disolved. Engelhardt takes a sweeping view of the last half-century of American history and tracks the profound shift in narrative and cultural understanding that we are still dealing with. It would be interesting to see what Engelhardt would say about September 11th. I would argue it has restored much of America's innocence, allowing us to attack Iraq with little domestic objection.

Engelhardt writes with an engaging voice helping to make what could be a tedious read quite enjoyable. At times his ideas can be difficult to connect, making this a book to be tackled as quickly as possible so that the plethora of information and full scope of the analysis can be engaged without loosing what was written in earlier pages. Do not expect any sort of 'traditional' work of history. This is for the students of American culture and anyone interested in the intricacies and complexities of the American identity. When you read this book, to a large extent you are learning about yourself.

Good on Media, Bad on History.......2005-09-12

Although he provides an in depth analysis of the modern media's role creating stereotypes of "non-whites", he actually attempts to say that this was the primary motivater to fight our "enemies" for centuries. This, of course, is nonsense. The Revolutionary War, Barbary Wars, War of 1812, World War I, and a large portion of World War II against the Rome-Berlin part of the Axis were against "white" people. And I'm probably missing other major conflicts.
Further, to say that America is unique among countries in using color or ethnicity to denigrate a people it is either at war with or has hostility towards is totally absurd. It's par for the course throughout the history of warfare and culture as a way to motivate its people to carry out and tolerate the acts of war. Unfortunately, he lets his biased political opinions biasedly spill into the pages of his book.
Nevertheless, he does an excellent job describing the power of the media to work as the Government's collective propaganda machine in their portrayal of the "eastern bloc" countries as the Cold War rose from the end of World War II.

The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World

Average customer rating:

What A Long Drawn-Out Cold War, for What?
An Engaging Mess
Sweeps out 60 years of cobwebs...
A Critical Review
Exhilirating and Exasperating

The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
Derek Leebaert
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0316164968

Amazon.com

America won the cold war, what Derek Leebaert calls a "muffled world war" in The Fifty-Year Wound, but the cost of victory--psychically, morally, and financially--was beyond frightful. The Soviet Union collapsed peacefully; civilization survived "more or less" intact; the world was "liberalized," and the cold war period was the longest "great power" peace since Rome fell. But a half-century "pattern of alarm" and the "industry of national security" curbed freedoms, diverted talent into "fundamentally unproductive" fields, postponed research, "trammeled" investment, and caused a national "waste of spirit." As well, Leebaert suggests the Cuban missiles were primarily psychological threats; American involvement in Vietnam led to OPEC's economic muscle; Kennedy was perhaps the most hawkish of post-WWII presidents, and that the events of September 11 were a direct cold war legacy. This massive, comprehensive, and stern but guardedly optimistic overview will reward the determined reader with its insights and hundreds of telling, sometimes shocking, details. --H. O'Billovitch

Book Description

America won the cold war, what Derek Leebaert calls a "muffled worldwar" in The Fifty-Year Wound, but the cost of victory--psychically,morally, and financially--was beyond frightful. The Soviet Union collapsedpeacefully; civilization survived "more or less" intact; the world was"liberalized," and the cold war period was the longest "great power" peace sinceRome fell. But a half-century "pattern of alarm" and the "industry of nationalsecurity" curbed freedoms, diverted talent into "fundamentally unproductive"fields, postponed research, "trammeled" investment, and caused a national "wasteof spirit." As well, Leebaert suggests the Cuban missiles were primarilypsychological threats; American involvement in Vietnam led to OPEC's economicmuscle; Kennedy was perhaps the most hawkish of post-WWII presidents, and thatthe events of September 11 were a direct cold war legacy. This massive,comprehensive, and stern but guardedly optimistic overview will reward thedetermined reader with its insights and hundreds of telling, sometimes shocking,details. --H. O'Billovitch

Customer Reviews:

What A Long Drawn-Out Cold War, for What?.......2005-11-22

More alternative history -- this time it's an "imaginary Berlin summit" in June, 1988, which didn't ever. The writer takes an event and plays around with it, warping times, places, people, even events to please his urge at the time. The actual summit in Moscow, where the U. S. President Ronald Reagan appealed to the Russian leader, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,' the Soviet evil was not apparent. Reagan will always be remembered for this one "request" -- you notice: he didn't say "please."

The Cold War forced America to live in the past, having started with the nuclear and missile ages, after the atomic bomb and Cuban missile crises. It ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union fifty-odd years later. This august government consultant describes it as the Fifty-year Wound (1939-1989). "Everything from 'Doctor Zhivago' to undersea exploration had a political dimension. More and more spheres of live were intruded on by politics -- from which Americans have historically sought their distance as a necessary condition of well-being." It was more like a cancer growing.

Along the way, we had the Korean War, Viet Nam War, Gulf Coast War, not Cold War. Jeff asked Senator Sasser about "star wars" and infrastructure back in the early '90s. Professor Leebaert divides his discussion of the causes into three parts, #1 was 1946-61, #2 was 1961-81, and #3 covered 1981-89, when Eastern Europe 'raced to freedom and democracy replaced dictatorship' and tyranny. The Berlin Wall crumbled in November, 1989. The failed coup in Russia took place in August, 1991, and he feels was the real end of the Cold War. Americans "gave as little attention to the end of the Soviet Union as they did that December to the fiftieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor."

The Soviets were burdened by $90 billion in debt at the end of 1991. He points fingers at past government officials and his alma mater's AID project where funds were "outsourced"-- Harvard, and the Pentagon for receiving big bucks over Russia's fall. I liked the way he used the word "unambiguous."

"Sometime after Appomattox, a Union major standing in a cemetery overlooking the ruins of Charleston was asked the way 'to Mr. Calhoun's grave.' "Madam," he answered, "the whole South is the grave of Mr. Calhoun." A hard commentary, but he spoke for the aroused power that had made it so. And so, too, is the whole post-Soviet sphere the grave of Lenin." Russia is no longer a danger. Now, it appears to be China. Lee, the convicted spy, was reminded "You know what happened to [the Rosenbergs]? They electrocuted them, Wen Ho." Nowadays, anyone can obtain secure documents from the Internet. U. S. Intelligence materials have been declassified and is there for the viewing of spies, terrorists, anyone with a computer.

An Engaging Mess.......2004-07-04

Considering the author's weighted interest toward technology and business, it is surprising how well much of this book reads. It is nothing if not quotable, brimming with insight-packed sentences and entertaining character sketches. Leebaert definitely knows his stuff: this doorstop-worthy tome is loaded with information.

Perhaps too much information. The main flaw of the book is its rather bogus thesis: The Cold War was filled with "costs." Yes, I suppose any forty year endeavor would be filled with its share of expenditures, many mistaken, but this is hardly the most enlightening point to make about the superpower conflict. Unfortunately, it is Leebaert's point, and he desperately tries to tie every nugget of info he tosses at the reader into his great theme. Every chapter, no matter how diffuse the subjects covered, is rounded off with a monotonously pedestrian "these mistakes could have been avoided" conclusion a harried undergraduate would have been ashamed to employ.

Many of Leebaert's mini-analyses of various arenas of the conflict are fascinating: his emphasis on the economic and technological subplots of the Cold War are particularly insightful. But the attempt to weave these analyses into an overarching narrative ultimately undo much of the coherence of the book. His appraisal of many of the power players in the struggle often come across as bitchy or unfair (as he spends little time examining the reasons for their actions, but nonetheless tallying their "mistakes" to play up his theme).

Another problem is that many of his assessments come to contradict each other: while showing how the Soviets ground their economy into the ground preparing for a "winnable" nuclear pre-emptive strike, Leebaert condemns the US "mandarinate" for advocating the essentially common sense theory of mutual assured destruction, rather than dangerously aping the Soviets in constructing ABM defenses (which, Leebaert refrains from explaining, are built to fire nuclear weapons at incoming ICBMs in the atmosphere. In which case, a city will suffer double the number of thermonuclear airbursts it would without the defense. The ABM Treaty of 1972, which the author does not hide his disdain for, was set up with the understanding that MORE offensive nuclear weapons around cities does not constitute a "defense," but rather, a furthering of an offensive arms race. Later in the book, it appears that Leebaert's ambiguous attraction to the SDI program has influenced his judgement). At various times, weapons build-ups are deemed wasteful, or necessary, depending on Leebaert's opinion of the administration calling for the build-up. JFK's triumphalism is derided as reckless, Ronald Reagan's is applauded as decicive---though the author considers the Soviet war scare of 1983, which Reagan's rhetoric precipitated, the most dangerous time of the Cold War. The ambiguities and inconsistencies in Leebaert's assessments need more development to explain them, but, given the scope of the work, the reader is usually left with a stream of brief anecdotes.

These contradictions, along with a thesis so broad as to be practically meaningless, often make the reader pause and wonder if the author has not taken on more than he can handle. A reader looking for a clear, introductory narrative of the period is advised to look elsewhere (Martin Walker's book is quite good). But for Cold War nuts looking for an engaging new spin on familiar material, as well as a deeper appreciation of the less-reported aspects of this apocalyptic time, this is a good addition to the literature.

Sweeps out 60 years of cobwebs..........2004-04-10

I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed this book. The writing is crisp and thought-provoking and the research is exhaustive.

After reading Leebaert, it is a little easier to see how the "sins of the fathers" have laid the foundation for the world we are currently living in. The Osama bin Ladens of the world were spawned from the cold warriors and Quixotic missions that Leebaert so excellently profiles.

The reading is sometimes difficult, and I found myself re-reading sections to make sure I understood where Leebaert was trying to go. Even so, it remains one of my top 20 favorite books.

A Critical Review.......2004-01-01

The book, The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Shapes Our World, maintains a focus on the half-century's flow of events. Two recurrent themes are non-support of allies for US overseas efforts, and disparaging the CIA's inability to mold information into proper intelligence. The primary, often unstated theme is lost opportunities of paths not taken. From the Introduction, (pp. xi - xiv):

"The price of victory...was levied during the most creative half century ever...in which countless opportunities fostered by...new awareness of scientific power were waiting to be pursued. ....
"...the price of victory goes far beyond the dollars spent on warheads, foreign aid, soldiers, propaganda, and intelligence. It includes...time wasted, talent misdirected, secrecy imposed, and confidence impaired. ....
"...the country was starting to speed into a future in which it could have used its resources...not deployed to fund a fleet here or an embezzled subsidy to some tropical gangster there, but to support the development of improved food strains, better means of teaching, a sleek national transport system, or an economic momentum that might have persisted after the 1960s boom. ....
"....
"Ultimately the cost of America's effort was felt as a waste of spirit."

Privileging effectiveness over morality shows author Derek Leebaert also suffering from the Cold War's ultimate cost:

"...an entire chapel of influential voices in Europe tried to turn military weakness into a virtue, attempting to seize the moral high ground always available to the ineffectual," (p. 473).

Polished by wit and enhanced with metaphorical argument and illustrations from popular culture, the writing frequently requires re-reading to comprehend the divergent flows of ideas. By the end of the book the pattern of wittiness, with the aggression latent in all humor, has helped to reveal his biases.

The book repeatedly details US collaboration with corrupt and inhumane governments, criticizing the CIA and the "abominable actions" of both it and those regimes. It is less well organized-and explicit-on these particulars than Blum's Killing Hope, but offers more comprehendible patterns-organized into historical periods rather than into Blums's country-based format. Leebaert offers greater depth though reliance on primary and knowledgeable sources; Blum's ferreting out sympathetic political understanding primarily from news reports is impressive.

The tone changes between the treatment of events toward which the author can look back on as history, and the more subjective and ideological treatment of those in which he was involved as participant or observer. Overall, Leebaert gives a favorable image of vigorous post-war economic rectitude, diminished by the repeated errors of the many misguided public servants in governments of the day. He sees these as caused by rhetorical and theoretical thinking rather than direct perception of situations.

One serious imbalance is his presentation of the cruel public treatment of parents of a slain Vietnam war veteran (p. 356), yet only a passing mention of war crimes by US Vietnam war participants. He states, "There is no evidence that the My Lai atrocity was repeated elsewhere, which is surprising in such a war," (p. 410). A diligent historian could reconsider in light of the transcript, book, and film of the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation; the October 2003 Toledo Blade newspaper documentation of atrocities in the central Vietnam highlands; Lifton on the psychology of Vietnam war veterans; and generally the information on Vietnam in Charny's Toward the Understanding and Prevention of Genocide.

Regarding 9-11's use of hijacked airliners as weapons, Leebaert states that the President and Secretary of Defense, "...each told the nation that no one had imagined the prospect...," (p. 617). Yet the topic was known to the US intelligence community since at least January 1995 when Al-Qaeda's plans for Project Bojinka to implement "the prospect" were discovered by Philippine police. Again in February of that year FBI agents were told of such a plot by the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and at the individual's 1997 bombing trial the strategy was discussed, as documented in Ahmed's The War on Freedom.

Though repeatedly disparaging post WW-II theoretician George Kennan, Leebaert doesn't call for an end to his dictum to maintain preeminence over the world's resources through military force. Rather he diverts attention by voicing a belief in the American myth of itself as a justly-emulated city-on-a-hill, "...the American supremacy that arose during the second half of the twentieth century was not a cumulative darkening of the sun but the recognition...of the plain facts of international life," (p. 640). He repeats, within the context of global terrorism, the lack of comprehension that economic exploitation and its enforcing militarism are unwelcome by the exploited and oppressed, claiming instead rejection of the US is motivated by unwholesome values: "...mass murder, surprise attack, and hatred borne by envy are inseparable from thousands of years of history," (p. 640). That Kennan's economic dictum is hidden by neo-Jacobian enforcement of the universality of American values goes unremarked. Instead he writes, "The goal since 1947 of wiring together the world by general prosperity...distances the U.S. presence...from all previous centuries of imperial ambition," (p. 642). The World Trade Organization, World Bank, and the "imperial ambition" of corporate globalization have missed Professor Leebaert's lesson that general prosperity, as opposed to US economic preeminence, has been the goal.

Throughout there is a negative view of state ownership of enterprise at any stage of the enterprise's development, or of the state's development. The last paragraph of the book that equates privatization of government with U.S. Cold War victory is unsupported. Much of the Conclusion diminishes the author's accomplishment by layering his ideology onto informative content.

Exhilirating and Exasperating.......2003-07-21

I bought the paperback version of this book because it had blurbs on it from both the Washington Times (conservative) and Washington Monthly (liberal). I thought a book on the Cold War appealing to both sides of the political spectrum might have something to offer.

It does. This is a book well worth reading. It is also a bit of a mess.

For the liberals, there's a sound thrashing of the CIA; a dim view of our involvement in Vietnam and other lesser countries hardly worthy of our notice; and a harsh assessment of talents, resources, and money wasted in frantic stop-and-start waves of over-reaction to dimly understood but sensationalized events like the Cuban missile crisis, for example.

For the conservatives, there's the claim that massive amounts of defensive spending notwithstanding, we were never a militarist society; the trashing of wimpy and wistful detente policy; and, most of all, there's Ronald Reagan, striding manfully onto the scene like, yes, John Wayne, with a resolve and vision lacking in all his predecessors combined, it seems, driving the Soviet Union to ruin at long last.

So how did Reagan do it? Well, he spent the Soviets into ruin. On Star Wars. Leebaert makes a good case for this. But massive spending on Star Wars - a still unproven defense strategy some 20 years later - is just the kind of military-university/academic-science/research-thinktank-policy wonk boondoggle he has such fun ridiculing for most of the book.

In short, a work both exhilirating and exasperating.

Average customer rating:

Who was Responsible for Starting the Cold War?

Falls short of a convincing condemnation

Stalinist Drivel!

The case against Harry Truman

Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953 (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)
Arnold offner
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

1945 - Present | 20th Century | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
World War I | Military | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
Relations | International | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Harry S. Truman And the Cold War Revisionists

Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany, 19441949

From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War

Eisenhower and the Cold War

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

ASIN: 0804747741
Release Date: 2002-01-25

Book Description

This book is a provocative, forcefully argued, and thoroughly documented reassessment of President Truman’s profound influence on U.S. foreign policy and the Cold War. The author contends that throughout his presidency, Truman remained a parochial nationalist who lacked the vision and leadership to move the United States away from conflict and toward détente. Instead, he promoted an ideology and politics of Cold War confrontation that set the pattern for successor administrations.

This study sharply challenges the prevailing view of historians who have uncritically praised Truman for repulsing the Soviet Union. Based on exhaustive research and including many documents that have come to light since the end of the Cold War, the book demonstrates how Truman’s simplistic analogies, exaggerated beliefs in U.S. supremacy, and limited grasp of world affairs exacerbated conflicts with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. For example, Truman’s decision at the Potsdam Conference to engage in “atomic poker” and outmaneuver the Soviets in Europe and Asia led him to brush aside all proposals to forgo the use of atomic bombs on Japan.

Truman’s insecurity also reinforced his penchant to view conflict in black-and-white terms, to categorize all nations as either free or totalitarian, to demonize his opponents, and to ignore the complexities of historic national conflicts. Truman was unable to view China’s civil war apart from the U.S.-Soviet Cold War. Belittling critics of his support for the corrupt Guomindang government, he refused to negotiate with the emergent PRC. Though he did preserve South Korea’s independence after North Korea’s attack, he blamed the conflict solely on Soviet-inspired aggression, instead of a bitter dispute between two rival regimes. Truman’s decision to send troops across the 38th parallel to destroy the North Korean regime, combined with his disdain for PRC security concerns, brought about a tragic wider war.

In sum, despite Truman’s claim to have “knocked the socks off the communists,” he left the White House with his presidency in tatters, military spending at a record high, McCarthyism rampant, and the United States on Cold War footing at home and abroad.

Customer Reviews:

Who was Responsible for Starting the Cold War?.......2007-08-11

Harry S. Truman, the accidental president from Independence, Missouri, has enjoyed a rebirth of popularity since the 1970s, after leaving office with exceptionally low approval ratings in January 1953. His more recent popularity revolves around the Truman story of humble origins, machine politics, and a good man having greatness thrust upon him. Truman rose to the occasion and demonstrated effective leadership in a time of crisis. He took decisive action to end the war and win the peace, carrying forward the plan to create a strong international entity in the United States and championing the Marshall Plan to help Europe recover from World War II among other initiatives. Moreover, his resolute resistance to the Soviet Union as the cold war began to dominate international politics in the latter 1940s proved critical to ensuring a democratic Western Europe. For most historians, especially those of the dominant consensus mindset that assign blame for the origins of the cold war to Stalin and Soviet adventurism, Truman acted forthrightly to counter Soviet might. Couple that with an apparent homeyness and frankness and Truman's resurrection was assured. That is essentially the story told in David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning Truman biography and a host of other publications.

Offner takes issue with this dominant interpretation and assigns the preponderance of blame for the origins of the cold war to Truman. Like revisionist historians of the 1960s and 1970s, he contends that Truman was essentially a small time politician from a backwater who proved unable to master the tides of history around him. While acknowledging his successes with the Marshall Plan and selected other initiatives, Offner finds that the Truman should nonetheless receive the lion's share of the condemnation for the cold war. Representative of many such statements in "Another Such Victory," Offner writes that "Stalin put the interests of the Soviet state before the desire to spread Marxist-Leninist ideology, pursued pragmatic or opportunistic agreements, recognized America's vast military and industrial power, and always calculated what he called the `correlation of forces'" (p. 27). In other words, Offner asserts that Stalin and the Soviet Union was never the threat that Truman believed. Truman's lack of experience on the international stage and a raft of character flaws made matters much worse than they ever had to be with the Soviet Union.

Offner presented a restatement of a standard revisionist conception about the origins of the cold war. Truman and several of his advisors, he wrote, "were American politicians of limited international experience and vision suddenly thrust into positions of global leadership. Their soles, their sensibilities, were undoubtedly hardened by witnessing a global war of unparalleled devastation and atrocities. They were appalled and frightened by Soviet advances in Europe and Asia and readily equated Communists with `Nazis and Fascists' or other imperial or `Tsarist' aggressors. They quickly persuaded themselves that if they got `tough,' they could make the Russians more `manageable' and willing acceded to American principles and interests..." (p. 99). At the same time, according to Offner, Truman mishandled the Soviet Union at every turn, misjudged intentions in Eastern Europe, failed in China and Korea, and engaged in nuclear threats and innuendo in an effort to force greater pliability from cold war rivals.

In the end, Offner's "Another Such Victory" is largely a restatement of the criticisms of American leadership offered in the revisionist work of such authors as Gabriel and Joyce Kolko's "The Limits of Power," first more than published thirty years ago, and Daniel Yergin's "Shattered Peace" (1977). Additionally, Offner's work abandons much of the nuanced criticisms present in Melvyn Leffler's masterful "A Preponderance of Power" (1992), which also seeks to roll back the arguments of the pro-Truman community but does so with more balance and reason. Indeed, a major criticism of Offner's book is that, despite its in-depth research and detailed documentary approach, he says little in this book that moves the historiography beyond where Leffler left it more than 15 years ago. What he does do, and it is an important contribution, is provide a massively referenced presentation of the story well-grounded in documentary sources.

Beyond that, we learn that Truman was parochial, given to fits of rage, racist and biased toward others, limited in experience and judgment, and manipulative in his dealis with Stalin. He might have taken a different approach, Offner states, by seeking a true collaborative arrangement with the Soviet Union. His personality and limitations would not allow it, according to Offner.

As a counterpoint to the Truman revisionist position present in such works as David McCullough and Robert H. Ferrell "Another Such Victory" may prove useful. Offner, however, goes too far in his zeal to tarnish Truman's image. Melvin Leffler's work is much more useful as thoughtful criticism of Truman and the origins of the cold war.

Falls short of a convincing condemnation.......2003-07-21

In this book, Harry Truman is not the common man who makes good, but rather a small town politician who was unable to rise to the demands of high office. The narrow and petty viewpoint espoused by Truman and those advisors he trusted led to constant provocation of the Soviets and was a large factor in the division of Europe between Western democracies and Eastern satellites.

Offner reviews the key moments of early post-war foreign policy and uses each to demonstrate how Truman and his advisers were unable to win the peace and instead locked the world into Cold War trench lines that became as immutable as those on the front lines of World War I. Offner believes that American intransigence played a major role in provoking the USSR to descend its Iron Curtain. Seen by many as a usurper to Franklin Roosevelt's mantle, Truman was in no position to implement the decisions of Yalta or forge a new policy for the post-war world.

Offner contends that Truman's decisions from the beginning were confrontational rather than cooperative. The author presents Truman's initial meeting with Russian Foreign Minster Molotov and shows how the president dresses down the envoy and enjoins him to "keep his promises." It is with this attitude that Truman attends the Postdam Conference in July 1945

The ultimate disposition of Europe is a key area for Offner's analysis. The division of Europe that came in the post-war days was not the inevitable outgrowth of Stalinist greed, to Offner, but was rather the natural and expected reaction of a war-weary Russia that felt itself being once again encircled by hostile forces. The introduction of the Marshall Plan was viewed by the USSR as an attempt on the part of America to purchase Europe at cut-rates.

When the Western Powers announce a plan to rearm their sectors in Germany it is countered by a Soviet proposal to create a unified but unarmed and neutral county. The eventual separation of Germany into the Western Eastern halves is the result of years of increasing tension and the desire by the United States and Britain to re-arm their erstwhile enemy as a bulwark against the communists to the East.

By 1947 Truman was confident enough to promulgate his own policy and abandon the façade of the wartime alliance which had all but disintegrated. The Truman Doctrine was the central policy for the rest of the president's time in office. It stated a willingness to fight against communism anywhere it attempts to overthrow a non-communist government. It made no distinction between "outside pressure" as opposed to "armed minorities," thus linking internal revolutions with the perceived threat of the USSR and its attempts at world conquest.

Offner comes closest to proving his thesis when he discusses the disastrous events in Asia. Inheriting support for Chang Kai-Shek and his GMD from Franklin Roosevelt, Truman was boxed in by his own policies. Even sending over General Marshall as a mediator between Chang and Mao was pre-ordained to fail as long as the American government simultaneously supplied materiel to the GMD during the negotiations. The failure of the Americans to recognize the People Republic of China caused Mao to turn to the USSR for assistance creating, at least temporarily, the self-fulfilling prophecy of "Monolithic Communism."

The fear that China was the first of the Asian dominoes to fall caused Truman to misperceive the North Korean attack on South Korea as another attempt by the Soviets to expand their empire. The Truman Doctrine meant this could not be allowed to succeed. Korea quickly became a quagmire with three years of fighting and thousands of American deaths all to re-establish the status quo. Much of the delay was caused by Truman's refusal to return POWs on an "all for all" basis. Instead, he attempted to prevent any POW from being involuntarily returned to his home nation. This was in fact contrary to the custom of war and the most recent Geneva Convention. While Truman's reluctance in part came from the poor treatment the USSR had given to repatriated POWs from World War II, it was small comfort to those who fought and died while this point was debated.

Another Such Victory is a well-written overview of the key issues in foreign policy faced by Truman. Each chapter contains an introduction summarizing the events to be presented a content section with details of the events and decisions, and a summary/conclusion section to review the chapter. The tendency to use the same quote over and over again throughout the chapter can go beyond adding emphasis and lead instead occasionally to a feeling of repetitiveness on the author's part.

Offner gives short shrift to the domestic politics and attitudes that prevailed during the Truman years. Though the book centers on foreign policy, the Truman presidency did not exist in a vacuum and domestic pressures played a large role in the ongoing development of policy abroad. Certainly throughout this period the red-baiting of Joseph McCarthy, the passage (over Truman's veto) of the MaCarran Act, and the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee were forces to be considered in any decision involving Communism.

Offner has the advantage of time and perspective as he judges the actions that Truman took sixty years ago. However, lost in the distance of time is the context of the period in which these decisions were made. Munich may have become a tired analogy by the 1990s, but Truman was living with the results of Chamberlain's appeasement less than a decade after it happened.

Offner has the temporal advantage of sixty years and the editorial advantage of choosing what material he will include to develop his viewpoint, both of which he uses liberally. It is true that mistakes were made, but Another Such Victory falls short of a convincing condemnation of Truman for provoking the Cold War.

Stalinist Drivel!.......2002-07-26

This book is right out of the KGB's disinformation file. It is the line they peddled for 40 years, until the whole corrupt system collapsed around their ears. Apparently there are still true believers living as free men in the USA (thanks to the likes of Harry Truman & Ronald Reagan) where they are able to diseminate the tired old, and now defunct, party line without fear of censorship.
Has this guy read none of the voluminous material that has been made available during the 1990's by both the Russian government (ie. KGB archives - published by Yale UP) and that of the US (ie. the Venona transcripts)? Or does he think, as many of the comrades do, that they are all forgeries?
Had this author been a Soviet academic living under the Communist regime who wrote a book accusing Stalin of being responsible for the Cold War not only would his work not have been published, but he would have found himself in the GULAG.
Such are the blessings of American Democracy and the American Capitalist system that even someone who has nothing intelligent to say can do so without fear of govenment reprisals, and find a publisher willing to publish his nonsense in the hope of making a few bucks.
Stanford UP should have more sense than to publish such rubbish.
There are plenty of Marxist/Maoist publishing houses around where this kind of book could find a more appropriate outlet. What's more the History Book Club should be ashamed of itself for diseminating it.

The case against Harry Truman.......2002-06-21

This is an interesting book, with its own eccentricities. When Truman left office he was one of the most unpopular presidents in American history. But his fundamental decency and frankness only endeared people after the presidencies of Johnson and Nixon, and his academic reputation only increased after the first clash with the cold war revisionists in the early seventies. Whereas his next five successors were all tarred by the Vietnam debacle, Truman's confrontation with Stalin and the formation of the western alliance appears to be the hallmark of responsible realism. Offner's critical account, by contrast, is the lengthiest denunciation of his foreign policy since Gabriel and Joyce Kolko's The Limits of Power, published thirty years ago.

The greatest weakness of this book is how little new there is in it. Although this book has 98 pages of notes to 474 pages of text, the most common primary source are the documents published in the foreign relations series, most of which were published two decades ago. Although Offner cites more than 30 sets of private papers, most have been readily available for years. Indeed, this book is not all that different from Melvyn Leffler's A Preponderance of Power (1992). The most important difference is that whereas both books provided a large amount of damning criticism of Truman, Leffler's overall verdict was somewhat softer than Offner's. Offner's book is also more focused on Truman's own personal role. Offner does provide more on the creation of Israel, and the partition of Germany, though he says little about the cold war's consequences in Latin America, where the confrontational atmosphere helped cut short a brief liberal interlude. There are a few errors: Thomas Dewey won 189, not 89, electoral votes in 1948 and Klement Gottwald in 1947 was Czechoslovakia's prime minister, not its president. Somewhat more discouragingly, Offner, in his criticism of the atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, does not discuss the counter-arguments of Richard Frank in his book Downfall. And many scholars would vigorously disagree with his assertion that half the Palestinian refugees in 1948 left voluntarily or at the instigation of their leaders.

With these caveats in mind, Offner provides a compelling case. It may not be new, but it is based on strong evidence. Truman was a parochial man, giving to making blandly prejudicial comments about blacks, Asians and Jews. The history he read was uncritically patriotic, didactic and melodramatic and this encouraged unhelpful tendencies in Truman's diplomacy. Offner does not say the cold war was Truman's fault, but clearly he did many things to make things worse. He accused the Soviet Union of clearly breaking treaty committments when the language was ambiguous, simplied complex problems in Korea and Greece to Soviet agression, and wrongly viewed Mao as a Soviet puppet.

Truman's positions usually had considerable support from the other members of his adminstration. But it is also true that Truman ignored Harriman's advice to be more accommodating towards the Soviet Union in Japan. He failed to support Byrnes' suggestion of demanding Chiang Kai-Shek's support for a coalition government as a quid pro quo for transporting Nationalist troops to Manchuria, and in doing so lost his best chance to stop a civil war, that Chiang would almost certainly lose. He ignored Kennan's and Elsey's belief that the Truman Doctrine was overstated, and he believed that the Russians were about to attack Turkey when even the Turks knew that was not going to happen. Truman ignored General Clay's and General Marshall's calls for compromise in Germany, which lead to partition. He ignored Acheson and Lillienthal's proposals for sharing atomic energy and by choosing Bernard Baruch to head the plan, guaranteed that the Soviet Union would never support it. Truman ignored the consensus of most State Department experts that recognition of Mao was inevitable. Truman never dealt with Enrico Fermi's opposition to making an H-bomb, and he and Acheson ignored George Kennan's belief that they should at least try to negotiate in good faith with Stalin over the latter's offer to reunify Germany in 1952.

One should point out that Truman's bombing of Nagasaki, if not Hiroshima, showed a horrifying moral blindness and indifference. Truman and Acheson did not even try to discuss Mao's offers of a relationship in 1949. Truman and his advisers also ensured that the Marshall Plan would only offer aid to the Soviet Union on terms that they knew it would reject. In the Korean war Truman unwisely supported MacArthur's expansive plans, ignored clear Chinese warnings, supported elements of MacArthur's dangerous policy even after firing him, and probably extended the war two years because he did not recognize that "voluntary repatriation" of POWS violated the Geneva Convention and under South Korean and Taiwanese police was often a farce. Even in Poland, where Stalin's conduct was most unforgivable, the United States could have conceded the Oder-Neisse border, which it eventually did. If one had to point out the fundamental flaw of Truman's foreign policy, it was that it sought to rehabilitate Germany economically without doing the same for the Soviet Union it had so viciously ravaged. Ultimately, Offner provides a clear case against the limitations of Truman's foreign policy.

Average customer rating:

Thoroughly researched, chronological read

Mr. Truman's War: The Final Victories of World War II and the Birth of the Postwar World
J. Robert Moskin
Manufacturer: University Press of Kansas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Presidents & Heads of State | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Truman, Harry | ( T ) | People, A-Z | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | 20th Century | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | Military | History | Subjects | Books
General | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Home Front | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Leaders & Leadership | Political Science | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0700611843

Amazon.com

When Franklin D. Roosevelt died, the task of bringing about a swift end to World War II fell to Harry Truman. In Mr. Truman's War, J. Robert Moskin sets out to "pull together the varied, conflicting strands that made (the last five months of World War II) one of the crucial and exciting moments in the world's history." Moskin, who is also the author of The U.S. Marine Corps Story, points out that while much of the architecture of the postwar world had already been decided before Roosevelt's death, Truman was faced with a host of difficult decisions, including when and how to deploy the atomic bomb. Mr. Truman's War is a detailed and readable recounting of the closing chapter of World War II.

Book Description

This is the first paperback edition of a book the New York Times called "a pitch-perfect rendering" of a critical period in American and world history. Robert Moskin's engaging and readable volume chronicles the first five months of Harry Truman's presidency, encompassing not only the destruction and defeat of the Axis Powers in Germany and Japan, but also the dropping of the first atomic bombs, the birth of the United Nations, the death of colonialism, and the beginning of the Cold War.

From the summons to FDR's deathbed early on the morning of April 2, 1945, through the Japanese surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri, Moskin tracks this unexpected president through some of the most uncertain and trying times in our nation's life. A former Missouri farmer and county commissioner known by his trademark bow tie and steel-rimmed glasses, Truman had little experience in international affairs, having become vice president via a purely political compromise only five months earlier.

Despite his inexperience, he did not hesitate before enormous challenges that loomed over his first administration. He ordered the dropping of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, refused Churchill's repeated request that he leave American troops in the Russian occupation zone of Germany, cut off supplies to de Gaulle's French army, and insisted that Japan surrender "unconditionally." And at the famous meeting with Stalin and Churchill at Potsdam, he more than held his own.

By the end of those first five months, Truman had transformed himself into a confident leader with a tenacious and unflinching commitment to American ideals in the face of new global challenges.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

Customer Reviews:

Thoroughly researched, chronological read.......2004-02-28

I found this book compelling and insightful. It is loaded with more than just the facts. It includes a very basic analysis from an historians perspective on the people and events, both big and small, which shaped the end of the war and the post-war world. President Truman was keenly aware of the many influences on such monumental events as the Potsdam Conference, the diplomacy required to confront the problems of a devastated Europe, the competing views among his cabinet members, the French priority for dominating Indochina, and the multi-faceted dilemma posed by new discoveries in atomic power. Moskin is able to deftly capture the complexities of so many intersecting landmarks of history and tell the story in a way that brings the reader along through the uncertainties of the end of WWII.

Average customer rating:

Cold Victory
Poul Anderson
Manufacturer: Pinnacle Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Starship

ASIN: 0523485271

Architects Of Victory: Six Heroes of the Cold War

Average customer rating:

Six Men Who Helped Change the World
An excellent book and analysis
revisionist history's finest hour
History as it should be told
"Winning" Six Heros, I think NOT

Architects Of Victory: Six Heroes of the Cold War
Joseph Shattan
Manufacturer: Heritage Foundation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Presidents & Heads of State | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Military & Spies | Professionals & Academics | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

War, Peace, & International Politics (8th Edition)

ASIN: 0891950826

Book Description

The Cold War was one of the most dangerous periods in American history, but it ended with one of our greatest victories: the dismantling of the Soviet Empire and discrediting of Communist ideology. Architects of Victory tells how the Cold War was won and it does so in a unique way by focusing on the lives of six great figures who were among those most responsible for Western victory: Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Konrad Adenauer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Pope John Paul II, and Ronald Reagan. This scholarly survey of contemporary history and celebration of human greatness provides an indispensable overview of the events and personalities that dominated the second half of the 20th Century.

Download Description

Author Joseph Shattan profiles Reagan and five other individuals whose vision and leadership shaped Western perceptions and policy during the Cold War: Harry S. Truman, Winston Churchill, Konrad Adenauer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Pope John Paul II.

Customer Reviews:

Six Men Who Helped Change the World.......2001-03-25

Joseph Shattan has assembled a series of short, but informative profiles of six leaders who played central roles in the Cold War. His roster of heroes includes:

-- President Truman. After initially toeing the accommodationist line of FDR, Truman soon recognized the expansionist ambitions of the Soviet Union and reacted accordingly. His Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Greece and Turkey aid package stopped the spread of Marxist hegemony in its tracks and set the contours for the four-decade struggle that was to come.

-- Winston Churchill. In and out of office, he warned early and often of the rising Bolshevik threat. But like his earlier forebodings about Hitler, his alarms fell largely on deaf ears. It was not until the 1980s that the West pursued Cold War strategies that can truly be called Churchillian -- with predictable results.

-- Konrad Adenauer. As the first Chancellor of the Republic of Germany, he planted the vital country squarely in the Western camp. West Germany was the crucible of the Cold War. Lacking a leader of Adenauer's resolve and conviction, that country could have easily fallen under the Soviet orbit, or, as Stalin designed, opted for a feckless, hollow "neutrality."

-- Solzhenitsyn. In Shattan's words, he "re-moralized the struggle" after Viet Nam and other setbacks cast doubt on the West's Containment policies. His seminal writings, especially "The Gulag Archipealgo," laid bare the repressive underpinnings of the Soviet system, while his public outrage at detente opened many eyes in the West.

-- Pope John Paul II -- The first non-Italian Pontiff in some 400 years came around at a most propitious moment. (Andropov and other Soviet paranoids contended that the Pope's selection was engineered by the U.S.) Lech Walesa credits Pope John Paul II with "saving Solidarity" -- the counter-revolutionary movement that administered the first schisms in the Soviet armor --and in inspiring his fellow Poles in their stuggle to shake off the yoke of Communist domination.

-- President Reagan. He foresaw the demise of the Soviet Union at a time when many saw history moving inexorably away from the West. Beginning in the 1970s, he called Communism a failed and failing system that would ultimately be trumped by the West -- heretic words to Western leaders who thought befriending the Soviets was the best way to change their behavior. As President, he pursued policies (Churchill's) expressly designed to exacerbate the tensions within the Soviet system. The Berlin Wall was toppled (it did not "fall"; it was pushed) less than 10 months after he left office.

Shattan's work is required reading for anyone interested in learning how the Cold War began -- and ended.

An excellent book and analysis.......2000-10-18

This book is a very impressive piece of work. Shattan is very fair when he writes about each and every person, no matter what their political stripe. From Churchill's prescient knowledge of what must be done to Truman's acknowledgement of the danger that Communism posed to Adenauer's firm and unwavering alignment with the West to Solzihentisyn(sp?) showing how the Cold War was really a moral struggle to Pope John Paul II's unwavering determination to free Poland to Ronald Reagan who ultimately caused the end of the Cold War; even though it came under Bush's administration; Shattan demonstrates a keen eye for details and an excellent sense of analysis. This is well worth reading for anyone interested in the Cold War.

revisionist history's finest hour.......2000-08-23

This is the ideological nonsense that passes for intelligence on the rabid right. In regards to Reagan, although a critique of the importance of these "Hero's" is overdue. If just spending the USSR into destruction were true, the Soviet Union would have fallen in 1943 when they spending virtually everything on materiel. Read about the economic situation the Soviets faced and Gorbachev's thoughts. He knew the situation was desperate long before he got to the top, and knew there must be changes. He allowed the borders to open. A few more facts, i.e., Solidarity, Perstroika, and you'll get a picture of what happened. The USSR would have collasped without Reagan. Why would the Soviets just throw in their hand after Reykjavik? (read Frances Fitzgerald's new book.) The first time I heard this inane theory about Reagan I did the same thing Gorbachev did when he first heard it - I broke into a good belly laugh. I will admit the right has a PR machine that is second to none. But in the end this is just another specious attempt to revise history, a close cousin to "FDR was in on Pearl harbor."

History as it should be told.......2000-07-19

This book's objectivity is suspect due to the fact that it was published by the conservative Heritage Foundation; however, Joseph Shattan does a good job in making his case for these six men who did so much to alter the course of late 20th century history. It is remarkable that his list includes two American presidents (one Democrat, one Republican), a German chancellor, England's greatest prime minister, a pope, and a Russian writer. Such a disparate group makes this more than an essay on politics, it is a rich analysis of fifty years of world history. You can disagree with Shattan (as other reviewers have done), but you cannot deny that he has offered good reasoning for his heroic choices. It is enlightening to read about the contributions of Solzhenitsyn, Adenaur, and John Paul II, which are not well known. It is extremely satisfying to read a concise analysis of what Truman, Churchill, and Reagan brought to the mix. I believe that conservatives give Reagan too much credit for "winning" the Cold War, however I also believe that history will bear them out to a very large degree. Churchill is a giant, truly the Man of the Century (despite what TIME magazine thinks), and get his credit here. Truman obviously had a strong grasp on "the big picture" even as he grew into his role. It is interesting to apply what Shattan teaches us to the study of governments, economies, and social progress in this same time period. Joseph Shattan has done us all a favor by publishing this book; maybe efforts like this will finally begin to reduce the luster from Mikhail Gorbachev. Buy this book and read it. Then donate it to your kids' school library.

"Winning" Six Heros, I think NOT.......2000-06-15

how can one say victory after a few million people lost their lives in all the proxy wars, I couldn't understand why this author "praises" these people, communism fell under it's own faulty economic structure. I thought when I first picked up this book, lets see what he has to say, by the time I finished the book I was disgusted! How can ANY side claim victory in a war, everybody loses in a war, everybody.

Average customer rating:

Cold Victory: Grassy Knoll
Poul Anderson
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Days of Defeat and Victory (Jackson School Publications in International Studies)

Average customer rating:

Days of Defeat and Victory (Jackson School Publications in International Studies)
E. T. Gaidar , and Yegor Gaidar
Manufacturer: University of Washington Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Former Soviet Republics & Siberia | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Eastern Europe | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

Non-US Legal Systems | Perspectives on Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Guidelines for Cold War Victory Peace and Freedom Through Cold War Victory

Average customer rating:

Guidelines for Cold War Victory Peace and Freedom Through Cold War Victory
American Security Council National Strategy Committee
Manufacturer: American Security Council Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000P15MKM

Marching to Cold Harbor: Victory and Failure, 1864

Average customer rating:

An Indepth Look At a Pivotal Battle in the Civil War
A masterful and intricate history, true to the past.

Marching to Cold Harbor: Victory and Failure, 1864
R. Wayne Maney
Manufacturer: White Mane Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

An Indepth Look At a Pivotal Battle in the Civil War.......2002-11-20

This was an extremely well written book, it was intriguing and made me only want to read more. It was a colorful, indepth look at the last few battles before the south finally surrendered. I would recommend this classic piece of work to anyone who would like to know and feel the last battles of the civil war along with the surrender of the south.

A masterful and intricate history, true to the past........1999-04-21

In his book, R. Wayne Maney (History teacher at Thomas Jefferson HS for Science and Technology, VA) describes in intricate dfetail the events contained within the last great campaign of the American Civil War. In researching his work, Maney spent many tireless hours at the Library of Congress, AND IT SHOWS! An artistic blend of historical detail, battle movements, personal reflections, and news reports sets the stage and tells the story of The Army of The Potomac's last great push towards Richmond, eventually leading to the Second Battle of Cold Harbor and the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. This book holds a personal interest for me, because I was one of Mr. Maney's AP European History students and I can verify his complete interest in the Civil War and his dedication to historical detail.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books