1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910455249103321

Autore

Robin Ron Theodore

Titolo

The making of the Cold War enemy [[electronic resource] ] : culture and politics in the military-intellectual complex / / Ron Robin

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, N.J., : Princeton University Press, c2001

ISBN

1-282-25922-9

9786612259227

1-4008-3030-3

Edizione

[Course Book]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (294 p.)

Disciplina

973.92/01/9

Soggetti

Cold War - Social aspects - United States

Research institutes - United States - History - 20th century

Intellectuals - United States - Political activity - History - 20th century

Electronic books.

United States Foreign relations 1945-1989

United States Intellectual life 20th century

United States Foreign relations Asia

Asia Foreign relations United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Abbreviations -- Acknowledgments -- INTRODUCTION: Rumors of an Enemy -- PART ONE: DEFINING THE PARADIGM -- PART TWO: NORMAL SCIENCE -- PART THREE: CRISIS -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government enlisted the aid of a select group of psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists to blueprint enemy behavior. Not only did these academics bring sophisticated concepts to what became a project of demonizing communist societies, but they influenced decision-making in the map rooms, prison camps, and battlefields of the Korean War and in Vietnam. With verve and insight, Ron Robin tells the intriguing story of the rise of behavioral scientists in government and how their potentially dangerous, "American" assumptions about human behavior would



shape U.S. views of domestic disturbances and insurgencies in Third World countries for decades to come. Based at government-funded think tanks, the experts devised provocative solutions for key Cold War dilemmas, including psychological warfare projects, negotiation strategies during the Korean armistice, and morale studies in the Vietnam era. Robin examines factors that shaped the scientists' thinking and explores their psycho-cultural and rational choice explanations for enemy behavior. He reveals how the academics' intolerance for complexity ultimately reduced the nation's adversaries to borderline psychotics, ignored revolutionary social shifts in post-World War II Asia, and promoted the notion of a maniacal threat facing the United States. Putting the issue of scientific validity aside, Robin presents the first extensive analysis of the intellectual underpinnings of Cold War behavioral sciences in a book that will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in the era and its legacy.