David Byrnes's Books

Ascent to Power

How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World

By: David L. Roll

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Ascent to Power

How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World

By: David L. Roll

From Franklin Roosevelt’s final days through Harry Truman’s extraordinary transformation, this is the enthralling story behind the most consequential presidential transition in US history. When Roosevelt, in failing health, decided to run for a fourth term, he gave in to the big city Democratic bosses and reluctantly picked Senator Truman as his vice president, a man he barely knew. Upon FDR’s death in April 1945, Truman, after only 82 days as VP, was thrust into the presidency. Utterly unprepared, he faced the collapse of Germany, a Europe in ruins, the organization of the UN, a summit with Stalin and Churchill, and the question of whether atomic bombs would be ready for use against Japan. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was growing increasingly hostile towards US power. Truman inherited FDR’s hope that peace could be maintained through cooperation with the Soviets, but he would soon learn that imitating his predecessor would lead only to missteps and controversy. Spanning the years of transition, 1944 to 1948, Ascent to Power illuminates Truman’s struggles to emerge as president in his own right. Yet, from a relatively unknown Missouri senator to the most powerful man on Earth, Truman’s legacy transcends. With his come-from-behind campaign in the fall of 1948, his courageous civil rights advocacy, and his role in liberating millions from militarist governments and brutal occupations, Truman’s decisions during these pivotal years changed the course of the world in ways so significant we live with them today.

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539

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Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0593186451

ISBN 13

9780593186459

The Hopkins Touch

Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler

By: David L. Roll

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The Hopkins Touch

Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler

By: David L. Roll

The best biography of a crucial figure at pivotal moment in American history since Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1948 classic, Roosevelt and Hopkins." --Steven Casey, author of Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion and the War against Nazi Germany, 1941-1945

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537

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190218177

ISBN 13

9780190218171

FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944

By: David M. Jordan

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FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944

By: David M. Jordan

With its insider tales and accounts of party politics, and campaigning for votes in the shadow of war and an uncertain future, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 makes for a fascinating chapter in American political history.

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405

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Indiana University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0253356830

ISBN 13

9780253356833

The Last 100 Days

FDR at War and at Peace

By: David B. Woolner

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The Last 100 Days

FDR at War and at Peace

By: David B. Woolner

A revealing portrait of the end of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's life and presidency, shedding new light on how he made his momentous final policy decisions The first hundred days of FDR's presidency are justly famous, often viewed as a period of political action without equal in American history. Yet as historian David B. Woolner reveals, the last hundred might very well surpass them in drama and consequence. Drawing on new evidence, Woolner shows how FDR called on every ounce of his diminishing energy to pursue what mattered most to him: the establishment of the United Nations, the reinvigoration of the New Deal, and the possibility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. We see a president shorn of the usual distractions of office, a man whose sense of personal responsibility for the American people bore heavily upon him. As Woolner argues, even in declining health FDR displayed remarkable political talent and foresight as he focused his energies on shaping the peace to come.

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432

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Basic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0465096514

ISBN 13

9780465096510

David McCullough American Presidents E-Book Box Set

John Adams, Mornings on Horseback, Truman, The Course of Human Events

By: David McCullough

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David McCullough American Presidents E-Book Box Set

John Adams, Mornings on Horseback, Truman, The Course of Human Events

By: David McCullough

From “America’s most beloved biographer, David McCullough” (Time)—a collection of his bestselling biographies of American Presidents. This ebook box set features David McCullough’s award-winning biographies of American Presidents. John Adams is the magisterial, Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of the independent, irascible Yankee patriot, one of our nation’s founders and most important figures, who became our second president. Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant National Book Award–winning biography of young Theodore Roosevelt’s metamorphosis from sickly child to a vigorous, intense man poised to become a national hero and then president. Truman is the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry Truman, the complex and courageous man who rose from modest origins to make momentous decisions as president, from dropping the atomic bomb to going to war in Korea. Including a special bonus: The Course of Human Events. In this Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, David McCullough draws on his personal experience as a historian to acknowledge the crucial importance of writing in history’s enduring impact and influence, and he affirms the significance of history in teaching us about human nature through the ages.

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2289

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Simon and Schuster

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ISBN 10

145165815X

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9781451658156

New Politics in the Old South

Ernest F. Hollings in the Civil Rights Era

By: David T. Ballantyne

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New Politics in the Old South

Ernest F. Hollings in the Civil Rights Era

By: David T. Ballantyne

The first scholarly account of the South Carolina Democrat's career and the transformation of Southern U.S. politics and society during the civil rights era New Politics in the Old South is the first scholarly biography of Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings, a key figure in South Carolina and national political developments in the second half of the twentieth century. Throughout his career Hollings was renowned for his willingness to voice unpleasant truths, as when he called for the peaceful acceptance of racial desegregation at Clemson University in 1963 and acknowledged the existence of widespread poverty and malnutrition in South Carolina in 1969. David T. Ballantyne uses Hollings's career as a lens for examining the upheaval in southern politics and society after World War II. Hollings's political career began in 1948, when he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. He served as governor from 1959 to 1963 and then as a U.S. senator from 1966 until he retired in 2005. Ballantyne illuminates Hollings's role in forging a "southern strategy" that helped move southern Democrats away from openly endorsing white supremacy and toward acknowledging the interests of racial minorities, though this approach was halting and reluctant at times. Unlike many southern politicians who emerged as reactionary figures during the civil rights era, Hollings adapted to the changing racial politics of the 1960s while pursuing a clear course—Vietnam War hawk, fiscal conservative, regional economic booster, and free-trade opponent. While Hollings was at times an atypical southern senator, his behavior in the 1960s and 1970s served as a model for survival as a southern Democrat. His approach to voting rights, military spending, and social and cultural issues was mirrored by many southern Democrats between the 1970s and 1990s. Hollings's career demonstrated an alternative to hard-edged political conservatism, one that was conspicuously successful throughout his Senate tenure.

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247

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Univ of South Carolina Press

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ISBN 10

1611177049

ISBN 13

9781611177046

Truman

By: David McCullough

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Truman

By: David McCullough

The Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry S. Truman, whose presidency included momentous events from the atomic bombing of Japan to the outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War, told by America’s beloved and distinguished historian. The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid characters—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallace Truman, George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson—and dramatic events. In this riveting biography, acclaimed historian David McCullough not only captures the man—a more complex, informed, and determined man than ever before imagined—but also the turbulent times in which he rose, boldly, to meet unprecedented challenges. The last president to serve as a living link between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Truman’s story spans the raw world of the Missouri frontier, World War I, the powerful Pendergast machine of Kansas City, the legendary Whistle-Stop Campaign of 1948, and the decisions to drop the atomic bomb, confront Stalin at Potsdam, send troops to Korea, and fire General MacArthur. Drawing on newly discovered archival material and extensive interviews with Truman’s own family, friends, and Washington colleagues, McCullough tells the deeply moving story of the seemingly ordinary “man from Missouri” who was perhaps the most courageous president in our history.

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1409

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

0743260295

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9780743260299

Know Your Enemy

The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts

By: David C. Engerman

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Know Your Enemy

The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts

By: David C. Engerman

As World War II Ended, few Americans in government or academia knew much about the Soviet Union. It was, as Winston Churchill had famously noted, "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." To address this dangerous gap in knowledge, as David C. Engerman shows in this book, a network of scholars, soldiers, spies, and philanthropists created an enterprise known as Soviet Studies." "Bringing together iconoclasts, geniuses, lone wolves, and careerists to analyze an entire nation and its ruling ideas, Soviet Studies attracted great minds from the left, right, and center. Among them are controversial individuals ranging from George Kennan to Margaret Mead to Zbigniew Brzezinski, not to mention historians Sheila Fitzpatrick and Richard Pipes.Together they created the knowledge that helped fight the Cold War and define Cold War thought. Ranging from the end of World War II to the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Know Your Enemy shows that Soviet Studies became a vibrant intellectual enterprise, studying not just the Soviet threat, but Soviet society and culture, as well as Russian history and literature." --Book Jacket.

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472

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OUP USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195324862

ISBN 13

9780195324860

Stalin and the Bomb

By: David Holloway

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Stalin and the Bomb

By: David Holloway

The classic and “utterly engrossing” study of Stalin’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb during the Cold War by the renowned political scientist and historian (Foreign Affairs). For forty years the U.S.-Russian nuclear arms race dominated world politics, yet the Soviet nuclear establishment was shrouded in secrecy. Then, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, David Holloway pulled back the Iron Curtain with his “marvelous, groundbreaking study” Stalin and the Bomb (The New Yorker). How did the Soviet Union build its atomic and hydrogen bombs? What role did espionage play? How did the American atomic monopoly affect Stalin's foreign policy? What was the relationship between Soviet nuclear scientists and the country's political leaders? David Holloway answers these questions by tracing the dramatic story of Soviet nuclear policy from developments in physics in the 1920s to the testing of the hydrogen bomb and the emergence of nuclear deterrence in the mid-1950s. This magisterial history throws light on Soviet policy at the height of the Cold War, illuminates a central element of the Stalinist system, and puts into perspective the tragic legacy of this program―environmental damage, a vast network of institutes and factories, and a huge stockpile of unwanted weapons.

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507

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Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300164459

ISBN 13

9780300164459

A Stone of Hope

Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow

By: David L. Chappell

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A Stone of Hope

Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow

By: David L. Chappell

The civil rights movement was arguably the most successful social movement in American history. In a provocative new assessment of its success, David Chappell argues that the story of civil rights is not a story of the ultimate triumph of liberal ideas after decades of gradual progress. Rather, it is a story of the power of religious tradition. Chappell reconsiders the intellectual roots of civil rights reform, showing how northern liberals' faith in the power of human reason to overcome prejudice was at odds with the movement's goal of immediate change. Even when liberals sincerely wanted change, they recognized that they could not necessarily inspire others to unite and fight for it. But the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament--sometimes translated into secular language--drove African American activists to unprecedented solidarity and self-sacrifice. Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, James Lawson, Modjeska Simkins, and other black leaders believed, as the Hebrew prophets believed, that they had to stand apart from society and instigate dramatic changes to force an unwilling world to abandon its sinful ways. Their impassioned campaign to stamp out "the sin of segregation" brought the vitality of a religious revival to their cause. Meanwhile, segregationists found little support within their white southern religious denominations. Although segregationists outvoted and outgunned black integrationists, the segregationists lost, Chappell concludes, largely because they did not have a religious commitment to their cause.

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359

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Univ of North Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807895571

ISBN 13

9780807895573

The Patriarch

The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy

By: David Nasaw

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The Patriarch

The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy

By: David Nasaw

In this pioneering new work, celebrated historian David Nasaw examines the life of Joseph P. Kennedy, the founder of the twentieth century's most famous political dynasty. Drawing on never-before-published materials from archives on three continents and interviews with Kennedy family members and friends, Nasaw tells the story of a man who participated in the major events of his times: the booms and busts, the Depression and the New Deal, two world wars and the Cold War, and the birth of the New Frontier. In studying Kennedy's life, we relive the history of the American century. "Riveting . . . The Patriarch is a book hard to put down . . . As his son indelibly put it some months before his father was struck down: 'Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your county.' One wonders what was going through the mind of the patriarch, sitting a few feet away listening to that soaring sentiment as a fourth-generation Kennedy became president of the United States. After coming to know him over the course of this brilliant, compelling book, the reader might suspect that he was thinking he had done more than enough for his country. But the gods would demand even more." - New York Times Book Review

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914

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0143124072

ISBN 13

9780143124078

Slayers of the Great Serpent II (Pathfinder)

By: David Caffee

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Slayers of the Great Serpent II (Pathfinder)

By: David Caffee

A classic fantasy adventure for Pathfinder. "Beyond the Forest of Night" is the second installment of a globe-spanning adventure series called Slayers of the Great Serpent. This series of adventure modules draws inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands stories, the fairy tales of Oscar Wilde, the works of Romantic poets like Coleridge and Byron, and the myths and folktales of cultures the world over. The vision behind the Slayers of the Great Serpent series is about creating a story about heroes and their great deeds, but also about making a world that is majestic and awe-inspiring.

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Lulu.com

Published Date

ISBN 10

138726334X

ISBN 13

9781387263349

The American People in World War II

Freedom from Fear, Part Two

By: David M. Kennedy

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The American People in World War II

Freedom from Fear, Part Two

By: David M. Kennedy

Even as the New Deal was coping with the Depression, a new menace was developing abroad. Exploiting Germany's own economic burdens, Hitler reached out to the disaffected, turning their aimless discontent into loyal support for his Nazi Party. In Asia, Japan harbored imperial ambitions of its own. The same generation of Americans who battled the Depression eventually had to shoulder arms in another conflict that wreaked worldwide destruction, ushered in the nuclear age, and forever changed their way of life and their country's relationship to the rest of the world. The American People in World War II--the second installment of Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning Freedom from Fear--explains how the nation agonized over its role in the conflict, how it fought the war, why the United States emerged victorious, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could. The American People in World War II is a gripping narrative and an invaluable analysis of the trials and victories through which modern America was formed.

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523

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199726493

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9780199726493

David McCullough Library E-book Box Set

1776, Brave Companions, The Great Bridge, John Adams, The Johnstown Flood, Mornings on Horseback, Path Between the Seas, Truman, The Course of Human Events

By: David McCullough

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David McCullough Library E-book Box Set

1776, Brave Companions, The Great Bridge, John Adams, The Johnstown Flood, Mornings on Horseback, Path Between the Seas, Truman, The Course of Human Events

By: David McCullough

Perfect for David McCullough fans and history lovers alike, this ebook boxed set features all of his bestselling titles, from 1776 to Mornings on Horseback. This ebook box set includes all of David McCullough’s bestselling titles: 1776 is the riveting story of George Washington, the men who marched with him, and their British foes in the momentous year of American independence. Brave Companions contains profiles of the exceptional men and women who shaped history, among them Alexander von Humboldt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Charles and Anne Lindbergh. The Great Bridge is the remarkable, enthralling story of the planning and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, which linked two great cities and epitomized American optimism, skill, and determination. John Adams is the magisterial, Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of the independent, irascible Yankee patriot, one of our nation’s founders and most important figures, who became our second president. The Johnstown Flood is the classic history of an American tragedy that became a scandal in the age of the Robber Barons, the preventable flood that destroyed a town and killed 2,000 people. Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant National Book Award–winning biography of young Theodore Roosevelt’s metamorphosis from sickly child to a vigorous, intense man poised to become a national hero and then president. Path Between the Seas is the epic National Book Award–winning history of the heroic successes, tragic failures, and astonishing engineering and medical feats that made the Panama Canal possible. Truman is the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry Truman, the complex and courageous man who rose from modest origins to make momentous decisions as president, from dropping the atomic bomb to going to war in Korea. A special bonus is included: The Course of Human Events. In this Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, David McCullough draws on his personal experience as a historian to acknowledge the crucial importance of writing in history’s enduring impact and influence, and he affirms the significance of history in teaching us about human nature through the ages.

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4558

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1451658257

ISBN 13

9781451658255

A Matter of Justice

Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution

By: David A. Nichols

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A Matter of Justice

Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution

By: David A. Nichols

Fifty years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce a federal court order desegregating the city's Central High School, a leading authority on Eisenhower presents an original and engrossing narrative that places Ike and his civil rights policies in dramatically new light. Historians such as Stephen Ambrose and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., have portrayed Eisenhower as aloof, if not outwardly hostile, to the plight of African-Americans in the 1950s. It is still widely assumed that he opposed the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision mandating the desegregation of public schools, that he deeply regretted appointing Earl Warren as the Court's chief justice because of his role in molding Brown, that he was a bystander in Congress's passage of the civil rights acts of 1957 and 1960, and that he so mishandled the Little Rock crisis that he was forced to dispatch troops to rescue a failed policy. In this sweeping narrative, David A. Nichols demonstrates that these assumptions are wrong. Drawing on archival documents neglected by biographers and scholars, including thousands of pages newly available from the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Nichols takes us inside the Oval Office to look over Ike's shoulder as he worked behind the scenes, prior to Brown, to desegregate the District of Columbia and complete the desegregation of the armed forces. We watch as Eisenhower, assisted by his close collaborator, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr., sifted through candidates for federal judgeships and appointed five pro-civil rights justices to the Supreme Court and progressive judges to lower courts. We witness Eisenhower crafting civil rights legislation, deftly building a congressional coalition that passed the first civil rights act in eighty-two years, and maneuvering to avoid a showdown with Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas, over desegregation of Little Rock's Central High. Nichols demonstrates that Eisenhower, though he was a product of his time and its backward racial attitudes, was actually more progressive on civil rights in the 1950s than his predecessor, Harry Truman, and his successors, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Eisenhower was more a man of deeds than of words and preferred quiet action over grandstanding. His cautious public rhetoric -- especially his legalistic response to Brown -- gave a misleading impression that he was not committed to the cause of civil rights. In fact, Eisenhower's actions laid the legal and political groundwork for the more familiar breakthroughs in civil rights achieved in the 1960s. Fair, judicious, and exhaustively researched, A Matter of Justice is the definitive book on Eisenhower's civil rights policies that every presidential historian and future biographer of Ike will have to contend with.

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371

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1416545549

ISBN 13

9781416545545

Occupational Hazards

Success and Failure in Military Occupation

By: David M. Edelstein

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Occupational Hazards

Success and Failure in Military Occupation

By: David M. Edelstein

Few would contest that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is a clear example of just how fraught a military occupation can become. In Occupational Hazards, David M. Edelstein elucidates the occasional successes of military occupations and their more frequent failures. Edelstein has identified twenty-six cases since 1815 in which an outside power seized control of a territory where the occupying party had no long-term claim on sovereignty. In a book that has implications for present-day policy, he draws evidence from such historical cases as well as from four current occupations—Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq—where the outcome is not yet known. Occupation is difficult, in Edelstein's view, because ambitious goals require considerable time and resources, yet both the occupied population and the occupying power want occupation to end quickly and inexpensively; in drawn-out occupations, impatience grows and resources dwindle. This combination sabotages the occupying power's ability to accomplish two tasks: convince an occupied population to suppress its nationalist desires and sustain its own commitment to the occupation. Structural conditions and strategic choices play crucial roles in the success or failure of an occupation. In describing those factors, Edelstein prescribes a course of action for the future.

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249

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Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0801457327

ISBN 13

9780801457326

The Church and the Land

The National Catholic Rural Life Conference and American Society, 1923-2007

By: David S Bovée

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The Church and the Land

The National Catholic Rural Life Conference and American Society, 1923-2007

By: David S Bovée

*A history of the American Catholic Churchs policy toward rural issues in the past century*

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417

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CUA Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0813217202

ISBN 13

9780813217208

Over the Horizon

Time, Uncertainty, and the Rise of Great Powers

By: David M. Edelstein

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Over the Horizon

Time, Uncertainty, and the Rise of Great Powers

By: David M. Edelstein

How do established powers react to growing competitors? The United States currently faces a dilemma with regard to China and others over whether to embrace competition and thus substantial present-day costs or collaborate with its rivals to garner short-term gains while letting them become more powerful. This problem lends considerable urgency to the lessons to be learned from Over the Horizon. David M. Edelstein analyzes past rising powers in his search for answers that point the way forward for the United States as it strives to maintain control over its competitors. Edelstein focuses on the time horizons of political leaders and the effects of long-term uncertainty on decision-making. He notes how state leaders tend to procrastinate when dealing with long-term threats, hoping instead to profit from short-term cooperation, and are reluctant to act precipitously in an uncertain environment. To test his novel theory, Edelstein uses lessons learned from history’s great powers: late nineteenth-century Germany, the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, interwar Germany, and the Soviet Union at the origins of the Cold War. Over the Horizon demonstrates that cooperation between declining and rising powers is more common than we might think, although declining states may later regret having given upstarts time to mature into true threats.

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241

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

150171208X

ISBN 13

9781501712081

140 Days to Hiroshima

The Story of Japan's Last Chance to Avert Armageddon

By: David Dean Barrett

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140 Days to Hiroshima

The Story of Japan's Last Chance to Avert Armageddon

By: David Dean Barrett

A WWII history told from US and Japanese perspectives—“an impressively researched chronicle of the months leading up to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima” (Publishers Weekly). During the closing months of World War II, two military giants locked in a death embrace of cultural differences and diplomatic intransigence. While developing history’s deadliest weapon and weighing an invasion that would have dwarfed D-Day, the US called for the “unconditional surrender” of Japan. The Japanese Empire responded with a last-ditch plan termed Ketsu-Go, which called for the suicidal resistance of every able-bodied man and woman in “The Decisive Battle” for the homeland. In 140 Days to Hiroshima, historian David Dean Barrett captures war-room drama on both sides of the conflict. Here are the secret strategy sessions, fierce debates, looming assassinations, and planned invasions that resulted in Armageddon on August 6, 1945. Barrett then examines the next nine chaotic days as the Japanese government struggled to respond to the reality of nuclear war.

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500

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Diversion Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1635765803

ISBN 13

9781635765809

The Last Million

Europe's Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War

By: David Nasaw

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The Last Million

Europe's Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War

By: David Nasaw

From bestselling author David Nasaw, a sweeping new history of the one million refugees left behind in Germany after WWII In May 1945, after German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, millions of concentration camp survivors, POWs, slave laborers, political prisoners, and Nazi collaborators were left behind in Germany, a nation in ruins. British and American soldiers attempted to repatriate the refugees, but more than a million displaced persons remained in Germany: Jews, Poles, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and other Eastern Europeans who refused to go home or had no homes to return to. Most would eventually be resettled in lands suffering from postwar labor shortages, but no nation, including the United States, was willing to accept more than a handful of the 200,000 to 250,000 Jewish men, women, and children who remained trapped in Germany. When in June, 1948, the United States Congress passed legislation permitting the immigration of displaced persons, visas were granted to sizable numbers of war criminals and Nazi collaborators, but denied to 90% of the Jewish displaced persons. A masterwork from acclaimed historian David Nasaw, The Last Million tells the gripping but until now hidden story of postwar displacement and statelessness and of the Last Million, as they crossed from a broken past into an unknowable future, carrying with them their wounds, their fears, their hope, and their secrets. Here for the first time, Nasaw illuminates their incredible history and shows us how it is our history as well.

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673

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0143110993

ISBN 13

9780143110996

Thank God They're on Our Side

The United States and Right-wing Dictatorships, 1921-1965

By: David F. Schmitz

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Thank God They're on Our Side

The United States and Right-wing Dictatorships, 1921-1965

By: David F. Schmitz

Despite its avowed commitment to liberalism and democracy internationally, the United States has frequently chosen to back repressive or authoritarian regimes in parts of the world. In this comprehensive examination of American support of right-wing dictatorships, David Schmitz challenges the contention that the democratic impulse has consistently motivated U.S. foreign policy. Compelled by a persistent concern for order and influenced by a paternalistic racism that characterized non-Western peoples as vulnerable to radical ideas, U.S. policymakers viewed authoritarian regimes as the only vehicles for maintaining political stability and encouraging economic growth in nations such as Nicaragua and Iran, Schmitz argues. Expediency overcame ideology, he says, and the United States gained useful_albeit brutal and corrupt_allies who supported American policies and provided a favorable atmosphere for U.S. trade. But such policy was not without its critics and did not remain static, Schmitz notes. Instead, its influence waxed and waned over the course of five decades, until the U.S. interventions in Vietnam marked its culmination.

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404

Publisher

Univ of North Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807847739

ISBN 13

9780807847732

Great Power Security Cooperation

Arms Control and the Challenge of Technological Change

By: David W. Kearn

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Great Power Security Cooperation

Arms Control and the Challenge of Technological Change

By: David W. Kearn

This book explains the conditions under which great powers are likely to cooperate to improve their security by engaging in qualitative arms control. In agreeing to limit or proscribe certain classes of weapons, states will constrain their military capabilities and therefore decrease the threat they pose to potential adversaries. Focusing on the expected military impact of technological change and the capacity of states to confidently monitor the activities of its negotiating partners, it may be possible to forge lasting agreements that improves the security of the participating states. However, at other times, the nature technological change may force states to engage in competitive behavior, precluding cooperation and increasing the probability of conflict. Examining a diverse set of cases, including the Washington Naval Conference, The World Disarmament Conference at Geneva, the Baruch Plan for the International Control of Atomic Energy, and the SALT I Accords (including the ABM Treaty), this volume presents a persuasive, comprehensive and interesting contribution to the literature on arms racing and arms control, and should be of interest to students of international relations theory and security studies. By presenting a theoretical-informed model that explicitly links the security strategies of states to their choices about development and deployment of new weapons and, consequently, their willingness to engage in arms control cooperation, this book provides an important refinement upon existing theoretical and historical approaches.

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251

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Lexington Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0739189441

ISBN 13

9780739189443

Justice Robert H. Jackson's Unpublished Opinion in Brown v. Board

Conflict, Compromise, and Constitutional Interpretation

By: David M. O'Brien

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Justice Robert H. Jackson's Unpublished Opinion in Brown v. Board

Conflict, Compromise, and Constitutional Interpretation

By: David M. O'Brien

Brown v. Board of Education is widely recognized as one of the US Supreme Court's most important decisions in the twentieth century. Robert H. Jackson, an associate justice on the case, is generally considered one of the Court's most gifted writers. Though much has been written about Brown, citing the writing and remarks of the justices who participated in the 1954 decision, comparatively little has been said about Jackson or his unpublished opinion, which is sometimes even mistakenly taken as a dissenting opinion. This book visits Brown v. Board of Education from Jackson's perspective and, in doing so, offers a reinterpretation of the justice's thinking, and of the Supreme Court's decision making, in a ruling that continues to reverberate through the nation's politics and public life. Weaving together judicial biography, legal history, and judicial politics, Justice Robert H. Jackson's Unpublished Opinion in Brown v. Board provides a nuanced look at constitutional interpretation, and the intersection of law and politics, from inside the mind of a justice, within the context of a Court deciding a seminal case. Through an analysis of six drafts of Jackson's unpublished concurring opinion, David M. O'Brien explores the justice's evolving thoughts on relevant issues at critical moments in the case. His retelling of Brown presents a new view of longstanding arguments confronted by Jackson and the other justices over “original intent” versus a “living Constitution,” the role of the Court, and social change and justice in American political life. The book includes the final draft of Jackson's unpublished opinion, as well as the Warren Court's opinions in Brown and in Bolling v. Sharpe, for comparison, along with a timeline of developments and decision making leading to the Court's landmark ruling.

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232

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University Press of Kansas

Published Date

ISBN 10

0700625186

ISBN 13

9780700625185

New Jews

Race and American Jewish Identity in 21st-century Film

By: David L. Reznik

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New Jews

Race and American Jewish Identity in 21st-century Film

By: David L. Reznik

New Jews'?" is the first comprehensive study of American Jewish identity in Hollywood movies of the new millennium. Despite the argument that we live in a "post-racial" society with supposedly "new" Jewish characters emerging on the big screen, this book details how traditional racial stereotypes of American Jews persist in popular films from the first decade of this century. In clear and readable prose, the book offers an innovative and penetrating look at dozens of American Jewish "meddling matriarchs," "neurotic nebbishes," "pampered princesses," and "scheming scumbags" from 21st century film, whether Hollywood blockbusters like Meet the Fockers and Sex and the City or indie favorites like Garden State and Kissing Jessica Stein. Throughout the book, famous American Jewish characters played by the likes of Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson, Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Adam Sandler, and Ben Stiller are discussed, with the ultimate conclusion that movies today are marked less by the emergence of "new Jews" than by the continued - but dynamic and transformed -- presence of the same old stereotypes.

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184

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

131726438X

ISBN 13

9781317264385

Ike and McCarthy

Dwight Eisenhower's Secret Campaign Against Joseph McCarthy

By: David A. Nichols

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Ike and McCarthy

Dwight Eisenhower's Secret Campaign Against Joseph McCarthy

By: David A. Nichols

Describes how President Eisenhower used surrogates to orchestrate a secret campaign against the powerful Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy best known for his anti-Communist witch hunt, that ultimately resulted in McCarthy being censured and discredited, "--NoveList.

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Page Count

400

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1451686609

ISBN 13

9781451686609

In The Time Of The Americans

FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur-The Generation That Changed America 's Role in the World

By: David Fromkin

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In The Time Of The Americans

FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur-The Generation That Changed America 's Role in the World

By: David Fromkin

Coming of age during World War I and attaining their finest hour in World War II and the Cold War, these men -- FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur -- transformed America from an isolated frontier nation into a global superpower. As he tells their stories, Fromkin, author of A Peace to End All Peace, shows how this generation not only made America great but largely succeeded in making it a force for good.

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801

Publisher

Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307766063

ISBN 13

9780307766069

W. E. B. Du Bois, 1919-1963

The Fight for Equality and the American Century

By: David L. Lewis

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W. E. B. Du Bois, 1919-1963

The Fight for Equality and the American Century

By: David L. Lewis

Lewis charts the second half of Du Bois's career, from the end of World War I on.

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736

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0805025340

ISBN 13

9780805025347

Modernization from the Other Shore

American Intellectuals and the Romance of Russian Development

By: David C. Engerman

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Modernization from the Other Shore

American Intellectuals and the Romance of Russian Development

By: David C. Engerman

From the late nineteenth century to the eve of World War II, America's experts on Russia watched as Russia and the Soviet Union embarked on a course of rapid industrialization. Captivated by the idea of modernization, diplomats, journalists, and scholars across the political spectrum rationalized the enormous human cost of this path to progress. In a fascinating examination of this crucial era, David Engerman underscores the key role economic development played in America's understanding of Russia and explores its profound effects on U.S. policy. American intellectuals from George Kennan to Samuel Harper to Calvin Hoover understood Russian events in terms of national character. Many of them used stereotypes of Russian passivity, backwardness, and fatalism to explain the need for--and the costs of--Soviet economic development. These costs included devastating famines that left millions starving while the government still exported grain. This book is a stellar example of the new international history that seamlessly blends cultural and intellectual currents with policymaking and foreign relations. It offers valuable insights into the role of cultural differences and the shaping of economic policy for developing nations even today.

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422

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674036522

ISBN 13

9780674036529

The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower

The Presidency: Keeping the Peace

By: Louis Galambos,Daun Van Ee

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The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower

The Presidency: Keeping the Peace

By: Louis Galambos,Daun Van Ee

The final set of volumes (Vol 18-21 sold separately) of The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower contain 1,783 documents drawn from Eisenhower's second term as president from 20 January 1957 to 20 January 1961. Completing a monumental project that began with publication of The War Years in 1970, this final set of volumes of The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower contains 1,783 documents drawn from Eisenhower's second term as president from 20 January 1957 to 20 January 1961. In these years Eisenhower worked hard to hold the focus of American national politics on the two major objectives he had set for his presidency in 1952: to sustain the policy of containment without precipitating a war with the Soviet Union and to reduce the role of the federal government in U.S. domestic affairs. In both cases, events at home and abroad intruded—diverting attention to immediate problems, endangering the peace, and forcing the White House to devote most of its leadership to the crises of the day. As president during this tense period, Eisenhower maintained an extensive and revealing correspondence with prominent individuals as well as with personal friends. These letters, together with the occasional entries made in his diary, shed considerable light upon the major national concerns of the 1950s. The volumes also include private and secret correspondence previously unavailable to scholars. Some of these items have been only recently declassified, and many appear here in print for the first time. Taken as a whole, the Eisenhower papers from 1957-61 provide firm documentary evidence of the manner in which Eisenhower dealt with the complex internal and external problems faced by all of our modern political leaders.

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743

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JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0801866383

ISBN 13

9780801866388

American Hotel

The Waldorf-Astoria and the Making of a Century

By: David Freeland

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American Hotel

The Waldorf-Astoria and the Making of a Century

By: David Freeland

Completed in 1931, New York’s Waldorf-Astoria towers over Park Avenue as an international landmark and a masterpiece of Art Deco architecture. A symbol of elegance and luxury, the hotel has hosted countless movie stars, business tycoons, and world leaders over the past ninety years. American Hotel takes us behind the glittering image to reveal the full extent of the Waldorf’s contribution toward shaping twentieth-century life and culture. Historian David Freeland examines the Waldorf from the opening of its first location in 1893 through its rise to a place of influence on the local, national, and international stage. Along the way, he explores how the hotel’s mission to provide hospitality to a diverse range of guests was put to the test by events such as Prohibition, the anticommunist Red Scare, and civil rights struggles. Alongside famous guests like Frank Sinatra, Martin Luther King, Richard Nixon, and Eleanor Roosevelt, readers will meet the lesser-known men and women who made the Waldorf a leader in the hotel industry and a key setting for international events. American Hotel chronicles how institutions such as the Waldorf-Astoria played an essential role in New York’s growth as a world capital.

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212

Publisher

Rutgers University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0813594405

ISBN 13

9780813594408

The Voice of America and the Domestic Propaganda Battles, 1945-1953

By: David F. Krugler

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The Voice of America and the Domestic Propaganda Battles, 1945-1953

By: David F. Krugler

Examines the troubled existence of the Voice of America (VOA), the US government's international shortwave radio agency, following WWII. Explains that the VOA's troubles, including slashed budgets, canceled projects, and neglect by its operating agency, were the results of rivalries that shaped American politics during these years, especially the Republican drive to roll back the New Deal, the ongoing contest between conservative members of Congress and the Truman administration, and disputes over the VOA's proper purposes. Krugler teaches history at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

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276

Publisher

University of Missouri Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0826213022

ISBN 13

9780826213020

Book's by David Byrnes

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