From President Truman’s use of a domestic propaganda agency to Ronald Reagan’s handling of the Soviet Union during his 1984 reelection campaign, the American political system has consistently exerted a profound effect on the country’s foreign policies. Americans may cling to the belief that ‘politics stops at the water’s edge, ‘ but the reality is that parochial political interests often play a critical role in shaping the nation’s interactions with the outside world.
In The Cold War at Home and Abroad: Domestic Politics and US Foreign Policy since 1945, editors Andrew L. Johns and Mitchell B. Lerner bring together eleven essays that reflect the growing methodological diversity that has transformed the field of diplomatic history over the past twenty years. The contributors examine a spectrum of diverse domestic factors ranging from traditional issues like elections and Congressional influence to less frequently studied factors like the role of religion and regionalism, and trace their influence on the history of US foreign relations since 1945. In doing so, they highlight influences and ideas that expand our understanding of the history of American foreign relations, and provide guidance and direction for both contemporary observers and those who shape the United States’ role in the world.
This expansive volume contains many lessons for politicians, policy makers, and engaged citizens as they struggle to implement a cohesive international strategy in the face of hyper-partisanship at home and uncertainty abroad.
Tabla de materias
1. Janus, Tocqueville, and the World: The Nexus of Domestic Politics and US Foreign Policy, by Andrew L. Johns
2. Fact-Givers or Fact-Makers: The Dilemma of Information-Making in the State Department’s Office of Public Affairs during the Truman Administration, by Autumn Lass
3. From Hawk to Dawk: Congressman Melvin Laird & the Vietnam War, 1952-1968, by David L. Prentice
4. United States Senator Henry Scoop Jackson and the Intersection Between Domestic Politics and Foreign Relations in the Postwar Era, by Christopher Foss
5. Religious Pluralism, Domestic Politics, and the Emerging Jewish-Evangelical Coalition on Israel, 1960-1980, by Daniel G. Hummel
6. Subtraction by Addition: The Nixon Administration and the Domestic Politics of Arms Control, by Henry Maar
7. One Picture May Not Be Worth Ten Thousand Words, But The White House Is Betting It’s Worth Ten Thousand Votes: Richard Nixon and Diplomacy as Spectacle, by Tizoc Chavez
8. Creating an Ethnic Lobby: Ronald Reagan, Jorge Mas Canosa, and the Birth of the ‘Foundation’, by Hideaki Kami
9. Forging Consensus on Vietnamese Reeducation Camp Detainees: The FVPPA and US-Vietnamese Normalization, by Amanda C. Demmer
10. The Congressional Human Rights Caucus and the Plight of the Refuseniks, by Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard
11. Peace through Austerity: The Reagan Defense Buildup in the ‘Age of Inequality’, by Michael Brenes
12. The Domestic Politics of Superpower Rapprochement: Foreign Policy and the 1984 Presidential Election, by Simon Miles
13. Nobody Talks about it, but it is on Everybody’s Mind: Politics, Diplomacy, and the State of the Field, by Mitchell B. Lerner
Sobre el autor
Andrew L. Johns, professor of history at Brigham Young University, is coeditor of The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War.