The Truman Doctrine And Salt Ii

A short political history of the United States since 1929, focusing on the national political agenda. The book deals with civil rights, the anti-communist crusade, social reform and foreign policy and includes a discussion of military strategy in World War II.

American foreign policy is fundamental to any understanding of how the post-war world has been shaped. This insightful and wide-ranging book analyses the policies pursued by each presidency from that of Harry Truman to George W. Bush, and reviews the far-reaching consequences of these actions. Taking into account the most recent research and scholarly interpretations, T.G. Fraser and Donette Murray examine the priorities of each successive administration and how these have had to adapt under the pressure of events on a global scale. America and the World since 1945 - Focuses on the origins and course of the Cold War - Explains major crises and developments, such as the Truman Doctrine, the nature of containment, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Berlin, arms control and detente - Features analysis of how America became involved in armed conflict, as in Korea, the Gulf, the Balkans and Vietnam - Looks at American action in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as interventions in Latin America and Africa - Traces the evolution of policy towards China - Studies conventional diplomacy alongside the use of intelligence and covert activity - Examines the dynamics of the post-Cold War world Clear in its approach, this book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in America's relationship with the rest of the world from the end of the Second World War up to the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001.

Jeffrey Frank, author of the bestselling Ike and Dick, returns with the “beguiling” (The New York Times) first full account of the Truman presidency in nearly thirty years, recounting how a seemingly ordinary man met the extraordinary challenge of leading America through the pivotal years of the mid-20th century. The nearly eight years of Harry Truman’s presidency—among the most turbulent in American history—were marked by victory in the wars against Germany and Japan; the first use of an atomic bomb and the development of far deadlier weapons; the start of the Cold War and the creation of the NATO alliance; the Marshall Plan to rebuild the wreckage of postwar Europe; the Red Scare; and the fateful decision to commit troops to fight a costly “limited war” in Korea. Historians have tended to portray Truman as stolid and decisive, with a homespun manner, but the man who emerges in The Trials of Harry S. Truman is complex and surprising. He believed that the point of public service was to improve the lives of one’s fellow citizens and fought for a national health insurance plan. While he was disturbed by the brutal treatment of African Americans and came to support stronger civil rights laws, he never relinquished the deep-rooted outlook of someone with Confederate ancestry reared in rural Missouri. He was often carried along by the rush of events and guided by men who succeeded in refining his fixed and facile view of the postwar world. And while he prided himself on his Midwestern rationality, he could act out of instinct and combativeness, as when he asserted a president’s untested power to seize the nation’s steel mills. The Truman who emerges in these pages is a man with generous impulses, loyal to friends and family, and blessed with keen political instincts, but insecure, quick to anger, and prone to hasty decisions. Archival discoveries, and research that led from Missouri to Washington, Berlin and Korea, have contributed to an indelible and “intimate” (The Washington Post) portrait of a man, born in the 19th century, who set the nation on a course that reverberates in the 21st century, a leader who never lost a schoolboy’s love for his country and its Constitution.