1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910814297803321

Titolo

History, the White House, and the Kremlin : statesmen as historians / / edited by Michael Graham Fry

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Bloomsbury Publishing, , 2018

ISBN

1-4742-9089-2

1-4742-9088-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (290 p.)

Collana

History and politics in the 20th century: Bloomsbury Academic collections

Disciplina

327.73

Soggetti

Statesmen - United States

United States Foreign relations 1945-1989 Historiography

United States Foreign relations 1945-1989

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

1.Introduction / Michael Fry -- 2.United States policy and the Palestine problem: historical dimensions and the creation of an 'alternative narrative' / Rashid Khalidi -- 3.The boundaries of rational calculation in Soviet policy towards Japan / Jonathan Haslam -- 4.The Cuban Missile Crisis twenty-five years later: the learning continues / Dwain Mefford -- 5.The Soviet General Staff: an institution's response to change / Condoleezza Rice -- 6.British and American hegemony compared: lessons for the current era of decline / David Lake -- 7.Being a borrower: the re-emergence of the United States as a debtor nation / Diane Kunz -- 8.The United States and inter-war money and finance: lessons for Japan's future from America's past / Jeffry Frieden -- 9.The politics of empire: a theory with an application to the Soviet case / Jack Snyder -- 10.The power of historical analogies: Soviet interventions in Eastern Europe and US interventions in Central America / Dwain Mefford -- 11.Learning and reasoning by analogy / Alex Hybel -- 12.Conclusion / Alan Henrikson.

Sommario/riassunto

"Historical knowledge in its various forms - learned, observed and experienced - is one of the principal intellectual resources available to politicians and the officials who serve them. These policy communities habitually, though sometimes naively, inexpertly and misleadingly, use



history in the crafting of policy. In this book the question of whether politicians use history wisely and judiciously is posed about those who inhabit the Kremlin as well as the White House. The question has several dimensions which are examined here in a series of original essays. Is historically based reasoning rational? How influential is historical knowledge in deliberations over policy? And does historically based reasoning lead to sound decisions about future policy? The authors range over a wide area of economic and political issues - Palestine, Soviet policy, British and United States hegemonies and comparable predicaments, United States acceptance of its international responsibilities, Soviet expansionism, the Cuban Missile Crisis, US policy towards Latin America and the historical content of President Bush Sr.'s response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait."--Bloomsbury Publishing.