Turbulent Years: The 60s (Our American Century)

Customer Reviews:

A Super Chronicle Of The 60's !.......1999-11-05

192 pages filled with terrific photos of the times. You'll enjoy reading and seeing photos of: America Visiting Camelot, Fighting for Equal Rights, 60's Movies and TV, Sports Became Commerce, Tragedy of Vietnam, Making Love- Not War, Sounds of the 60's, and the Race to the Moon. A real memory jogger of the 60's !

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Culture, not Economics
The big picture and the small picture
The best book I know on twentieth-century American history
Excellent overview
Barone's book a forecast of politics at the millenium.

Our Country
Michael Barone
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0029018625

Customer Reviews:

Culture, not Economics.......2003-12-30

Michael Barone is the co-creator (with Grant Ujifusa) of the Almanac of American Politics, itself an almost inexhaustible well of the curious and (sometimes) interesting. Our Country is an effort to put the same sensibility to work in a narrative history. Barone has absorbed a lot and forgotten little, and he likes to remind the reader of things others are more likely to forget. Civil rights, for example. One wing of the Republican party had its roots planted firmly in the abolitionist movement, dating back to before the Civil War. You could call it "the Eisenhower wing," if you were clear that it did not include Eisenhower. As general, and later as president, it seems fair to say that Eisenhower just didn't get it - not so much hostility to blacks as a kind of blank incomprehension - why weren't they willing to keep the place (one is tempted to make comparisons with General Sherman). Lyndon Johnson, by contrast, is one who emphatically did get it. Vulnerable and insecure as he always saw himself, Johnson was able to show real empathy for the plight of American Blacks. So we have the kind of irony so familiar in politics - the soldier-statesman who didn't get it, imposing a civil rights bill on Congress against the best efforts of the cracker politician who did.

Barone obviously relishes the irony there, but he likes the story in particular because of an even more consistent enthusiasm. That is: he is fascinated by the hard work of governing, which he comes close to glamorizing in its very unglamorousness. You can see it perhaps best in his appreciative account of a man who he nominates as a forgotten progenitor of modern social legislation - Robert Wagner, the senator and father, inter alia, of the Wagner Labor Relations Act. Without Wagner, as Barone tells it, the New Deal's legislative agenda would have been a lot more insipid. It perhaps explains also his affection for Hubert Humphrey - a name perhaps mostly forgotten today, or remembered if at all only in the sour aftertaste of the 1968 presidential election, which he lost to Richard Nixon.

What perhaps gives zest to Barone's account is that for all his skill as a data-miner, he believes at the end that politics is culture and not economics that divides us or draws us together. It impels him to insist that there is a society more important than its contentions and divisions, more than the sum of its parts - in some sense, a res publica, or (back to Barone's title here) "Our Country." Only one afterthought: this is another book that cries out for an new edition.

The big picture and the small picture.......2000-03-08

Two warnings: First, the book is long. Second, the author is conservative and doesn't make an effort to hide it. If these facts don't disturb you then I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is a wonderful story of twentieth-century American politics, crammed with polls, stats, and insightful commentary. Why has ethnicity been a more important factor in politics than class? How did the political pendulum shift from conservatism to liberalism to conservatism again? Who are some of the most important statesmen in history that you've never heard of? And much, much more. If Michael Barone's "The Almanac of American Politics" is the Holy Bible of politics, then this work is a book of prayer.

The best book I know on twentieth-century American history.......1999-11-30

Barone knows American political history inside and out. He gives the reader crisp, incisive portraits of individuals from Henry Wallace to Jack Kemp, of legislation from the Taft-Hartley Act to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- and he shows the reader how these people and measures fit into and shaped the world as it existed in their time. (The first two chapters, in which he presents brief portraits of Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Tammany Hall politico Charles Murphy, brilliantly illuminate how Republicans and Democrats thought and felt about their country in the early 1920s.) In addition, Barone knows the hard data of politics -- survey results, voting patterns, demographics -- and analyzes them in ways which often produce striking insights. His analysis of the timing and nature of the New Deal realignment, and the patchy and hesitant way in which liberal policies came to be accepted in the three decades or so following 1932, ought to be read by anyone interested in how ideological shifts really take place in American politics. Lastly, Barone (a journalist and former Democratic activist) recognizes and respects the achievements of the United States in the twentieth century -- and doesn't define "achievement" solely as "movement towards the political left" (as many other writers on American history, even sincere admirers like Harold Evans, sometime seem to do.) I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone with an interest in twentieth-century political and social change.

Excellent overview.......1999-08-02

Barone's history of politics from Roosevelt to Reagan was a very enjoyable read. He included historical polling information throughout the book (presidential popularity, etc.) that really illustrated his theory on political trends. I knocked off one star from my rating because at times I felt the author's own political opinion overshadowed the points he was trying to make.

Definitely worth reading.

Barone's book a forecast of politics at the millenium........1998-07-21

This is required reading for all those hooked on what the White House derides as "the cable news shows" like Chris Matthews et al. Barone's years of compiling The Almanac of American Politics are manifested in this synthesis of some sixty years of national politics and his conclusion that it really is more than the economy, stupid. Is the Lewinsky Affair just a flash in the pan or will it define the landscape of American Politics at the millenium? Can a president's peccedillos (or other foreign sounding words) affect the national scene like race relations or the Panama canal? Was Dan Quayle onto something when he declared a race in 2000 against our two-term incumbent? While its timeframe doesn't reach Clinton, this book offers great insight into the schizophrenic poll results of late that seem to have pundits on the right and left tied up in knots trying to explain/spin.

Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement

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A deeply moving history of the Civil Rights era.
They Rode the Freedom Train and Held On For Their Lives
Nine White Women Who Made a Difference
Some stood up and were counted.

Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement
Constance Curry , Joan C. Browning , and Dorothy Dawson Burlage
Manufacturer: University of Georgia Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0820324191

Book Description

Why did nine white women cross the color line in the days of segregation and join the Southern Freedom Movement? What did they see, do, think, and feel in those uncertain but hopeful days? And how did their experiences shape the rest of their lives?

"These are brilliant and poignant stories that take us into the lives of a group of young white women who came of age in the era of the civil rights movement, participated actively and passionately in that movement, and were, in many ways, transformed by it. It is a human story that is sensitive, textured, multifaceted, and compelling. Overall, a stellar accomplishment." --Barbara Ransby

2001 Georgia Author of the Year Award, Creative Non-Fiction: Historical Division 2001 Finalist, ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award

First time in paperback.

Customer Reviews:

A deeply moving history of the Civil Rights era........2002-05-30

Just finished reading " Deep In Our Hearts", a book I'd like to strongly recommend. It captures on a very personal level, the spirit of the Civil Rights era, from the perspective of nine different white women who were deeply involved in the struggle to bring about more racial justice. It is a moving tribute to all the heroes of that very difficult time. To all who were involved at the time or those who are the least bit curious of "what went down", you cannot fail to admire the stories of these brave women. This is history (herstory) as it should be related-from the participants.

They Rode the Freedom Train and Held On For Their Lives.......2002-04-07

Imagine leaving your comfortable world as you knew it in the erly 1960's. Young white women; some from the north, some from the south. Rural and urban, college kids, middle class, working class and just plain poor. Heading to a dangerous world and joining the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. Leaving behind the scorn, disdain, and ridicule of family and friends. Walking into a climate of hate and bigotry, and joining in civil disobedience against segregation. Walking in the picket lines, sometimes fearing for your life; organizing, and joining in singing hymns of freedom. Going from tears of frustration to smiles of great joy, while hitching a ride on that freedom train and holding on for dear life.
One recent eveing at Northern Lights Book Store and Cafe in St. Johnsbury, Vt., 70 people heard two local women who participated passionately in that movement. The authors read from their book, Deep In Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement.
The book is an eloquent and powerful one that takes us back to one of the most tumultuous periods in American history; the erly days of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Freedom Summer, voter registrations, lunch counter sit-ins and the rise of Black Power and the women's movement. Deep In Our Hearts is a collection of essays, that take us into the lives of a group of young women who were transformed by the Civil Rights Movement.
The audience listened as Penny Patch looked back and read softly. "I understand well that what was between us will never be again, but still, that experience remains at the core of who I am. The fact that some of us had deep friendships that crossed all racial lines is simply a miracle. For short periods of time, in those early yers, we leaped over all the history and all of the minefields between us."
Perched on a stool and sipping warm tea to sooth a sore throat, Theresa Del Pozzo read from the book. "My involement with the movement began as a moral reaction to the blatant injustice of segregation and the denial of basic human rights of African-Americans. Along the way I got an education in the intricate patterns of racism and began to experience what I think as the small-c culture of the African_American community: the wisdom, dignity, strength, humor, gentleness and creativeness of its everyday life and people. The experience of living within the black world changed forever the person I was to become and the way I live my adult life."
Listening to the authors as they told their stories one could not help but admire their courage and admire this courageous book. They stand as powerful testaments to a time when the goal of universal justice was truly in sight and to the hope that a new generation of blacks and whites will take up the challenge to make the world a better place.

Marvin Minkler of the North Star Monthly

Nine White Women Who Made a Difference.......2000-11-04

This collection of stories, detailing the lives of nine white women active in the fight to end racial segregation and discrimination in this country, is sure to touch your heart. It is a must read for anyone interested in learning more about the Civil Rights movement of the sixties. I couldn't put it down.

Some stood up and were counted........2000-10-19

Forty years ago, in regard to the "race question," white people in this country fell into five general categories: those who never gave a thought to race-based segregation and discrimination (the numbers of whom could probably be counted on one hand); those who through ignorance or paranoia thought that African-Americans were in one way or another "inferior" beings, which somehow justified our own brand of apartheid; those who knew or suspected that the "inferiority" premise applied to African-Americans was bogus but who profited from that fiction being maintained; those who knew or believed that the inferiority idea was false but who, through reluctance or apathy, chose to do or say nothing about it, and those who, deep in their hearts, knew that the inferiority thesis was false and cruelly unfair, knew that our apatheid system made a lie of all the claims of equality our nation prided itself on, and who chose to confront it in an attempt to bring segregation and discrimination to an end through personal involvement and direct action. The nine white women who contributed to this book the stories of their development and their involvement in the civil rights struggle were of that last category. They never really saw themselves as particularly strong or smart, although their writing shows them to be exceptionally articulate, and none of them were brought up by their families to become involved in that fight. They took it upon themselves to make their own stands and become part of that effort regardless of the personal risks. "Deep In Our Hearts" is aptly named - what springs out at us from their stories is their simple strength, the heart-deep commitment to social justice, that helped make this country face up to its promises to all of its citizens. That they came from genuinely different backgrounds reflects the diversity that sets our country apart and which puts the lie to common assumptions about them, such as that they were born of affluent families from the northeast and went south with Ivy League educations and high-flown notions of setting things right. What is also remarkable about their stories and their lives is that they have continued with that commitment to equality and fairness in varied ways; they never saw fit to rest upon their laurels once this nation recognized, in words at least, that racial segregation and discrimination were wrong and brought down the obvious barriers to equality. These little stories, none more than forty-eight pages long, also spell out how their subsequent involvement in combating the Vietnam War was a logical progression, the same struggle on a different front. Although some of them became front-line soldiers in the fight to free women from their own set of shackles, all of them contributed to modern feminism and women's rights more by their actions than by their words. To them, and to the many whose stories who are not in this book, we all owe a debt of gratitude. If not for them this country may not have been able to look itself in the eye in the bathroom mirror. The collective lesson of these stories is that one need not come from uncommon beginnings in order to develop the will to lead extraordinary, adventuresome, purposeful lives. Read their stories, be inspired without being preached to, and put some meat on the dry bones of history.

In a Time of Torment: 1961-1967 (Nonconformist History of Our Times)

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NEVER EMBEDDED EVER INDEPENDENT, INTELLIGENT, AWAKE AND FREE: WHERE IS HE NOW!?
Wonderful Collection Of Pieces By Legendary I.F. Stone
Weirdly heroic in its approach to Stone Age Times.

In a Time of Torment: 1961-1967 (Nonconformist History of Our Times)
I. F. Stone
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (P)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Customer Reviews:

NEVER EMBEDDED EVER INDEPENDENT, INTELLIGENT, AWAKE AND FREE: WHERE IS HE NOW!?.......2007-06-20

Several recent reports examine through a variety of media how enslaved our once free now corporate and monopolistic press has grown. For example, Tim Robbins in his play Embedded Live exposes the way our press, unlike for instance under the journalism of Al GOre in the rice fields of Vietnam, are led around on a leash by the military Public Disinformation Office, and never report the thousands we kill each day in our lust for oil.

Similarly, we see in Orwell Rolls in His Grave how and why this occurs on the domestic front as well, with our political front men and spin doctors tightly controlling the corporate owned media to dictate how we the public must frame our thoughts on important issues, and waste much time on insignificant ones.

This modern travesty of our Founding Fathers's legacy of a free press in order to provide our democracy with the necessary well-informed public was deftly delayed by the great IF Stone, whose likes we need now more than ever.

This collection of articles from his weekly, published between 1961 through 1967 (and thus covering the Kennedy and Johnson administrations), illustrate the kind of journalism our people now must hunger for: intelligent, independent and fearless.

In his brilliant introduction, Stone astutely and prophetically foretold our current dismal condition of a tightly controlled press. He explores how disfavored reporters could be locked out of news sources, just as we have seen happen these past few years. He explores how reporters are seduced by their sources, dazzled in the Pentagon, until Stockholm syndrome fully sets in. Writes Stone: "Reporters tend to be absorbed by the bureaucracies they cover; they take on the habits, attitudes, and even accents of the military or the diplomatic corps. Should a reporter resist the pressure, there are ways to get rid of him (p. xviii)." Stone then cites exclusion through innuendoes, of irresponsibility, or radicalism, even then of Marxism. Nowadays it is accusations of less than fervent patriotism.

Stone avoided such lock-outs by being his own boss and beholden to no one. We must therefore read with reliability his monumental and validated work.

He further states in this introduction that "No bureaucracy likes an independent newspaperman. Whether capitalist or communist, democratic or authoritarian, every regime does its best to color and control the flow of news in its favor (p. xx)." I think in bureaucratic we may now read corporate, and seek for that forum of our reliable independent newspaperman. Perhaps the monopolistic media now would simply dismiss Stone as a fringe whacko (they did then), but we may read his record of contemporary events with confidence, and mourn the lack now of such a strong philosohy of journalism in keeping with Thomas Jefferson's vision for our free democracy.

Stone further writes: "I believe that no society is good and can be healthy without freedom for dissent and for creative independence. ( . . .) In the darkest days of McCarthy, when I was often made to feel a pariah, I was heartened by the thought that I was preserving and carrying forward the best in America's traditions, that in my humble way I stood in a line that reached back to Jefferson. These are the origins and the preconceptions, the hopes and the aspirations, from which sprang the pieces which follow (p.xxi)."

Where beside the life work of Mr. Michael Moore (e.g., Sicko, Fahrenheit 9/11/ Bowling for Columbine / Roger and Me (3 Pack), etc.) do we now discover such hopes and aspirations and commitment to independent reporting?

We must console and inspire one another with a rereading of Mr. Stone, who fortunately has been prolifically and inexpensively reprinted. Economically speaking we cannot afford not to read him. Collections include The War Years, 1939-1945 (A Nonconformist History of Our Times), Truman's time, the Korean war, The Haunted Fifties: 1953-1963 (Nonconformist History of Our Times) with the McCarthy era, as well as this present work and a final one Polemics and prophecies, 1967-1970 (A Nonconformist history of our times). Also of interest in these times is his writings regarding The killings at Kent State;: How murder went unpunished, including, for the first time, the full text of the Justice Dept. secret summary of the FBI findings ... document the Ohio authorities ignored, as well as The Trial of Socrates. Please read, in peace.

Wonderful Collection Of Pieces By Legendary I.F. Stone.......2004-04-04

I.F. Stone was a virtual legend among political junkies in the sixties and seventies, as indeed he was for well over a half century in various journalistic capacities from the Depression era until the late 1980s. He published an independent weekly journal for well over twenty years from the early 1950s until the mid-1970s in which he acted as soul reporter, editor, and publisher, and the work was acclaimed for its consistent accuracy, poignancy, and verve. He caught many scoops others were either not clever enough or courageous enough to cover, and his ability to focus on the way the facts of the situation fit together into a political byline made him a `must-read' for anyone interested in understanding how politics actually got done (down and dirty) in Washington, DC.

This particular book, "In A Time Of Torment, 1961-1967", is a superb collection of some of his most memorable articles, thought-pieces and observations taken from both the I.F. Stone Weekly as well as from the pages of `The Nation' and elsewhere during the most outrageous of times indeed, the turbulent and raucous 1960s. Also important in understanding Stone's approach is the book's subtitle, 'A Nonconformist History Of Our Times'; Stone is the most radical of journalists in that he approaches the issues at hand with supreme objectivity and without political blinders, and yet does so informed by a set of values and ethics that one wonders at his ability to `cut to the chase' and render the truth so consistently and so reliably that one often marvels at how simple he makes such erudition seem.

While describing himself as an anachronism, meaning he represented no one but himself, and found himself uncomfortable working within the constraints of a more institutional setting (even though he had done so quite marvelously for extended periods of time), he was that most rare of literary lions, a widely-read and intellectually circumspect truth-seeker. Like H.L Mencken, his prose often inspired one toward imitation, yet he also wrote clearly, unambiguously, and quite memorably. Herein we find a whole rafter of memorable articles, all short, ranging from several paragraphs to three or four pages in length. He covers subjects as distant from each other as JFK and the free press, from LBJ to China, and from Jeffersonian democracy to the racist issues inherent in the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

Indeed, Stone and his opinions were often viewed with alarm by the powers that be, for they understood all too well that he was read by many of the most important opinion makers and policy wonks within the Washington beltway and beyond, and that his weighing in on a specific issue often resulted in unwanted attention and a virtual spotlight being thrown in that general direction. This is a great book to have in your travel-bag; full of little gems you can read en route to almost anywhere, a pleasurable and intelligent companion that you can enjoy and finish in a few minutes and walk away better informed. He offers timeless intelligence, perspective, and some food for thought in almost everything he writes, and he can be taken in homeopathic doses. While most of the subjects he addressed are now dated, what he had to say was truly timeless. This is a great little book, and one I highly recommend. Enjoy!

Weirdly heroic in its approach to Stone Age Times........2002-04-29

I. F. Stone seemed to take it personally whenever any part of the globe was under consideration for being sent back to a new Stone Age by modern weaponry. Regarding proposals for more relentless pursuit of American policy in Vietnam on January 20, 1966, he wrote, "But this tough old troglodyte is not through yet. The whole air force drive in Vietnam is to transform a war we can't win to a war we might; from a war for the loyalties of the Vietnamese people into a war to destroy them; this is giving the obsolete B-52 its last murderous gasp over South Vietnam's jungles and rice paddies." (p. 104) That was a long time ago, and Stone can hardly be blamed for failing to see that the situations which could make such activities popular would fail to end in his own time. He had some grasp of history, but hardly could tell that we were all heading for catastrophes in which being unable to relate would be the new norm.

Torment is the key word in the title. The 1960s were years which were my golden age for understanding the geopolitical situation, because I was young enough to appreciate political views without regard for who was making money or controlling the means of production. I. F. Stone was astute enough to make his own economic criticism count in such times, even in the unlikely context of a review of the life of General Curtis LeMay, "after a lifetime of bomber command, as he told it to the writer of his story, MacKinley Kantor." (p. 92):

His nearest approach to an unfriendly remark about the capitalist system is an angry comment in his account of how the Air Corps flew the mails in 1934 under Roosevelt. "The public bought the idea (and still retains it)," he comments sourly, "that scores of Air Corps pilots lost their lives in an heroic but absurd attempt to emulate the superb performance of the commercial airlines." It is only in the bitterness of his feud with McNamara, that he allows himself to reflect by implication on the Business Man. . . .(p. 93).

Book Description

This book takes a unique look at the sixties by linking narcissism in American culture to secularization. The author argues that this connection is related to the Vietnam War and the series of traumas which shook America during this period. The author focuses on the religious decline among the mainline Christian denominations. Idema looks at many of the shared experiences of the Baby Boomers--from their music, to the sexual revolution, to films, to television, to their childhood lives of the 1950s (with particular focus on the significance of Elvis Presley). Borrowing from psychoanalysis, Idema creates a theory of cultural change, and the shared experience of this generation lies at the heart of this theory. Idema argues that the mainliners, especially those among the Baby Boomers, were poorly equipped--morally, psychologically, spiritually, and intellectually--to face and then master, traumas. This probing study will show readers that the religious experience is an important part of the story of the Sixties and that it continues to affect American culture today.

The Haunted Fifties, 1953-1963 (Nonconformist History of Our Times)

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snapshot of a time, with full emotion
A radical looks at a conservative era
Propaganda from a paid Soviet agent

The Haunted Fifties, 1953-1963 (Nonconformist History of Our Times)
I. F. Stone
Manufacturer: Little Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Customer Reviews:

snapshot of a time, with full emotion.......2005-05-30

This anthology can serve as an ideal introduction to what it was like to live at the height of the Cold War, a time in which the fear of a nuclear holocaust was part of everyday life. Stone approaches it all as both an intellectual and reporter, doing trench work on his beat yet reflecting with the depth of a real thinker, almost a contemporary historian. His voice is unique and his emotions always ring true.

I pulled this volume off of my father's shelf and was immediately engrossed in the vivid writing and evocation of the period. Stone was writing for his independent newsletter - he refused to do the lecture circuit to pay his bills, preferring to stay in DC in order to do what he saw as his job of seeking the truth - and it was required reading for anyone interested in national security policy for nearly 25 years, to the late 1960s. It is extremely stimulating, the product of an acute mind and a writer of great talent.

Stone is open-minded and rarely does any ideological bias show itself, in spite of his earlier leftist leanings. It is ridiculous to accuse him of being a Soviet spy - his review of the USSR on an independent trip there was that it was "not a good society run by honest men." The difference is that he really went there to see for himself and left with no illusions. Also, at times he grudingly approved of Eisenhower as a promoter of peace, and saw through the charm of JFK to the traditional conservative who was underneath. His is a uniquely independent voice.

But his reporting forays into the national security state are perhaps what had the greatest impact. He would often scoop reporters on the major papers with his revelations of underground nuclear testing and similar findings. This is really great stuff, irreplacable part of our history by one of the most important independent actors who refused to join the establishment. We are all richer for his life work. He was a loyal dissenter, a critical patriot, which sadly would seem impossible in the DC of today.

Warmly recommended.

A radical looks at a conservative era.......2005-02-11

This book, one of a series of collected material from his decades of writing, looks at a time of high tension, when the terror of nuclear war became real and the fear of the Soviet Union was used to justify a variety of questionable activities. Because he was an outsider and a leftist, his work had to meet a very high standard of research to be taken seriously. If you want to understand how the USA got to be the way it is today, these are vital documents.

I.F. Stone, who was a thorn in the side of the American government for more than thirty years, was so hated by government officials and in particular the right wing in American politics that even in death has has been the target of attack, accused of being a paid agent of the USSR. It must be pointed out that he was, in the end, no friend to any government that held its own people in contempt, whether on the right or left ends of the political spectrum. Read this book (and his others) to find out why.

Propaganda from a paid Soviet agent.......2004-01-25

I.F. Stone was revealed as a paid agent of the Soviet government with the release of the Venona transcripts in 1995. As a journalist in the pay of a hostile foreign government, Stone's view of the 1950s is fraudulent, biased and twisted to the highest degree. His writing as a "journalist" and his views of justice are as twisted as his loyalty to Stalin.

A History of Our Time: Readings in Postwar America

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A History of Our Time: Readings in Postwar America
Harvard Sitkoff
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195066162

Book Description

This comprehensive, widely-read anthology presents cogent and provocative articles from differing political perspectives on major issues in post-World War II America. The third edition is considerably expanded to include new selections on the origins of the Cold War, the struggle of
African-Americans for equality, the feminist movement, and Vietnam. The final section examining prospects for America in the 1990s has been completely revised, offering articles on current topics such as the urban underclass, the "greenhouse effect," nuclear arms control, and changing relations
with the Soviet Union. In addition to articles by leading historians the editors have chosen first-person accounts by participants in each of the issues under discussion, from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from the Birmingham Jail to Mikhail Gorbachev's historic speech to the United Nations.
With lively introductions to each section providing a context for the articles, this book helps readers make sense of the tumultuous world of our time.

Observing our Hermanos de Armas: U.S. Military Attaches in Guatemala, Cuba and Bolivia, 1950-1964 (Latin American Studies (Routledge (Firm)).)

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Observing Our Hermanos De Armas

Observing our Hermanos de Armas: U.S. Military Attaches in Guatemala, Cuba and Bolivia, 1950-1964 (Latin American Studies (Routledge (Firm)).)
Robert Kirkland
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0415947847

Book Description

This study analyzes the effectiveness of the U.S. military attaché corps in Latin America from the end of World War II to the Johnson administration. Until now, there has not been a historical study on attaché proficiency, their training and education, or utilization of their reports by policy makers in Washington. An analytical framework is used to test the capability of this intelligence gathering system and applied in the case studies of : Guatemala, 1950-1954, Cuba, 1954-1958 and Bolivia 1960-1964.

Customer Reviews:

Observing Our Hermanos De Armas.......2004-09-06

From the Author:

The military attaché system dates from the pre-World War II period. In those years, policymakers in Washington had limited information on the latest overseas military innovations. Attachés reported on these advances at selected embassies abroad. After the war, the U.S. substantially increased its diplomatic and military presence around the globe. This expansion included Latin America, where the U.S. had attachés stationed at every embassy in the Hemisphere. Attachés reported mostly on political-military developments because Latin American militaries were heavily involved in politics. Reporting accurately on these matters required attachés to possess language and cultural awareness which hitherto they had not necessarily needed.

This study analyzes the effectiveness the military attaché corps in Latin America from the end of World War II to the Johnson Administration. Until now, there has not been a historical study on attaché effectiveness, their training and education, or utilitization of their reports by policymakers in Washington. This book uses the case studies of: Guatemala, 1950-1954, Cuba, 1954-1958, and Bolivia, 1960-1964, to draw its conclusions.

This study finds that the training and education system of the U.S. Armed Forces did not prepare attachés to report accurately on complex political-military issues. The exceptions were those attachés who brought "skills to the table" that they obtained outside the services' training system--such as language fluency. The Washington bureaucracies which analyzed and disseminated attaché reports proved effective. However, this had more to do with the redundancy of information flow than the quality of one particular intelligence agency.

Data for the book draw heavily on interviews with attachés and those who worked with them and on the diverse military archives located at National Archives, the Washington National Records Center, the DIA History Office Archive, the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Presidential Libraries, the Military History Institute, and the U.S. Air Force Air War College Library.

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Our Century 1960-1970 (Our Century)
P. Hill
Manufacturer: Globe Fearon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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