Americas Century

This is America's story as it has never been told before, with award-winning editor and journalist Harold Evans documenting and celebrating the last hundred years with more than 900 original photographs, cartoons and illustrations.

In a perceptive and engaging meditation on the relationship between East Asia and the United States, Cohen examines how cultural influences have transformed and benefited both Asians and Americans.

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

The award-winning historian delivers a “brilliant and deeply informed” analysis of American power from the Spanish-American War to the Trump Administration (New York Journal of Books). In this sweeping and incisive history of US foreign relations, historian Alfred McCoy explores America’s rise as a world power from the 1890s through the Cold War, and its bid to extend its hegemony deep into the twenty-first century. Since American dominance reached its apex at the close of the Cold War, the nation has met new challenges that it is increasingly unequipped to handle. From the disastrous invasion of Iraq to the failure of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, fracturing military alliances, and the blundering nationalism of Donald Trump, McCoy traces US decline in the face of rising powers such as China. He also offers a critique of America’s attempt to maintain its position through cyberwar, covert intervention, client elites, psychological torture, and worldwide surveillance.

Offers brief profiles of hundreds of influential men and women, including political leaders, scientists, musicians, artists, writers, athletes, and business people

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

Preface: "The New Colossus"Pt. 1: Making the Century AmericanCh. 1: Producers, Brokers, and Users of Knowledge Ch. 2: Defining Tools of Social Intelligence Ch. 3: Inventing the Average American Pt. 2: The Social Contract of the MarketCh. 4: Turning out Consumers Ch. 5: Deradicalizing Class Pt. 3: Embattled IdentitiesCh. 6: From Voluntarism to Pluralism Ch. 7: Enlarging the Polity Pt. 4: Exporting American Principles Ch. 8: Individualism and Modernization Ch. 9: The Power of Uncertainty Acknowledgments Notes Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Sputnik. The first man on the moon. The Wright brothers and the Enola Gay. Television and e-mail. Dachau and Buchenwald. The Berlin Wall went up, and then it came crashing down. So did the stock market -- twice. It's been a century of elation and devastation -- of human greatness and of great tragedy. Here, from the archives of Time Life, is a poignant look at a century's worth of achievement, pathos, triumph, trends, and personalities. Here are the milestones and miracles, the inventions, explosions, heroes, and hurrahs that defined us in the 20th century. With hundreds of evocative images and countless moving stories, this chronicle recalls the faces, the moments, and the emotions of the century, as it draws to a close.

This book interrogates the nature of anti-Americanism today and over the last century. It asks several questions: How do we define the phenomenon from different perspectives: political, social, and cultural? What are the historical sources and turning points of anti-Americanism in Europe and elsewhere? What are its links with anti-Semitic sentiment? Has anti-Americanism been beneficial or self-destructive to its “believers”? Finally, how has the United States responded and why? The authors, scholars from a multitude of countries, tackle the potential political consequences of anti-Americanism in Eastern and Central Europe, the region that has been perceived as strongly pro-American.

As this most tumultuous century draws to a close, the need for a concise and trustworthy history is clear. Recent decades have seen the publication of American histories that are either bloated with unnecessary detail or infused with a polemical purpose that undermines their authority. InTwentieth-Century America, Thomas C. Reeves provides a fluidly written narrative history that combines the rare virtues of compression, inclusiveness, and balance. From Progressivism and the New Deal right up to the present, Reeves covers all aspects of American history, providing solid coverage of each era without burying readers in needless detail or trivia. This approach allows readers to grasp the major developments and continuities of American history and to come away with a cohesive picture of the whole of the twentieth century. The volume stresses social and well as political history, emphasizing the roles played by all Americans--including immigrants, minorities, women, and working people--and pays special attention to such topics as religion, crime, public health, national prosperity, and the media. Reeves is careful throughout to present both sides of controversial subjects and yet does not leave readers bewildered about which interpretations are most strongly supported or where to explore these issues more thoroughly. At the conclusion of each chapter, the author cites ten authoritative volumes for further study. The bibliographies, as well as the text, are refreshing in their lack of ideological bent. "Objectivity," Reeves suggests, "is an illusive but worthy goal for the historian." For anyone wishing to achieve a lucid historical overview of the past 100 years, Twentieth-Century America is the best place to start.