| Wars and Peace: The Future Americans Envisioned 1861-1991 1999 Edition Contributor(s): Na, Na (Author) |
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ISBN: 0312213522 ISBN-13: 9780312213527 Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan OUR PRICE: $104.49 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: July 1998 Annotation: "Wars and Peace" is a history of the way that a range of Americans have tried to conceptualize peace during five national security crises: the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Award-winning author David Mayers examines the intellectual foundations of U.S. foreign policy since 1861 and analyzes the way that Americans across the political spectrum have, in times of conflict, conceptualized the era that would follow hostilities. Mayers looks at this history in terms of a current problem: How should the United States fashion its policy in the post-Cold War world? What is striking about previous attempts to create postwar orders, Mayers reveals, is that they failed in the test to fulfill the hopes of their authors. Yet the cumulative impact of these ideas has been to shape collective imagination in America. Mayers argues that earnest attempts at innovation notwithstanding, U.S. purpose remains unchanged and like that of every nation: to survive, to prosper if possible. Yet the effort by generations of Americans (variously naive, self-serving, contradictory) to transcend this narrow understanding has produced high drama as well as glimmerings of a more decent political life. As applicable to this day and to this study as to his own, W.E.B. Du Bois published these lines in 1935: "Nations reel and stagger on their way; they make hideous mistakes; they commit frightful wrongs; they do great and beautiful things." In this volume Mayers gives voice to a range of people who have acted on the political scene--the powerful but also the marginalized, the vanquished, the dissenting--to show how Americans of all stripes and persuasions have flavored thenational discourse. "Wars and Peace" reacquaints readers with people whose eloquence, passion, and even wrongheadedness, gave texture to the debates of their times. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Political Science | International Relations - General - Political Science | History & Theory - General - Political Science | Security (national & International) |
| Dewey: 327.73 |
| LCCN: 98-15550 |
| Physical Information: 0.76" H x 5.82" W x 8.8" (0.85 lbs) 184 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1851-1899 - Chronological Period - 20th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Wars and Peace is a historical look at how Americans have tried to conceptualize peace during five national security crises: The Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Mayers examines the intellectual foundations of U.S. foreign policy since 1861 and analyzes the way that Americans, across the political spectrum and in times of conflict, have conceptualized the eras that would follow hostilities. Mayers looks at history in terms of a current problem: How should the United States fashion its policy in the post-Cold War world? What is striking about previous attempts to impose order on a postwar world, Mayers reveals, is that they failed to fulfill the hopes of their authors. Yet the cumulative impact of these ideas has been to shape the collective imagination in America. Mayers argues that U.S. purpose remains unchanged and like that of every nation: to survive and to prosper. |