86 results for "World History"

The Farhud: roots of the Arab-Nazi alliance in the Holocaust

Black, Edwin
The Nazis needed oil. The Arabs wanted the Jews and British out of Iraq. The Mufti of Jerusalem forged a far-ranging alliance with Hitler resulting in the June 1941 Farhud, a Nazi-style pogrom in Baghdad that set the stage for the devastation and expulsion of the Iraqi Jews and ultimately almost a million Jews across the Arab world. The Farhud was the beginning of what became a broad Nazi-Arab alliance in the Holocaust. --publisher.
Dialog Press 2010 448 pages

One Palestine Complete

Tom Segev
Great Britain ruled Palestine from 1918 to 1948, replacing 500 years of Turkish control and leading to the State of Israel, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1998. The British brought Palestine into the 20th century. When they arrived the country lay in a Levantine nirvana; by the time they left it had become the arena for one of the century's major international conflicts. Among the personalities who shape this narrative are Winston Churchill, the archaeologist Flinders Petrie, King Feisal, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion. One momentous consequence of these 30 years was that at the end of World War I there were 10 Arabs for every Jew. Based on diaries, letters and first-hand accounts, this is a narrative history of Palestine under Crown rule.
Henry Holt 2001-01-01

The pre-emptive empire: a guide to Bush's kingdom

Landau, Saul
Saul Landau is an internationally known scholar, author, journalist, poet and activist. An Emmy-award-winning film maker, he does frequent radio and TV shows, and his work on human rights and Latin America have won him acclaim the world over. This, his latest book, is a scathing account of George W. Bush's world before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that will appeal to anyone who is disenchanted with the cynicism of Bush's government, and the blatant imperialism U.S. international policy -- or those who just want to learn about what's happening in US politics. Landau covers the topical and controversial issues -- from terrorism and US foreign policy to Bush's wondrous election victory; from Enron, Chile and Pinochet to Cuba, the Middle East, the IMF, the environment and sexual and cultural politics. He delves into the erosion of civil liberties and the proliferation of empire under the guise of pre-empting the scourge of terrorism. Landau reveals how Bush protects "his" terrorists -- those who perpetrate violence against Castro’s Cuba, and to whom he owes his presidency. He also examines how Bush has appointed former officials to high level posts in his cabinet despite their membership in a conspiracy to sell weapons of mass destruction to Iran in the 1980s. In "declassifying" Bush’s Empire, Landau dissects a post-9/11 world where deference to patriotism obliterates debate in Congress and the media. How can the notion of empire happily co-exist with the notion of a republic? In times like these, as dissenting voices are stifled and the public are denied access to the facts about their own security, Landau shows how democracy itself is under threat. He asks whether the already fragile world economy can survive in the new "security" culture of the post-9/11 world. This is an entertaining read from one of America's foremost cultural and political commentators. Above all, Landau makes a convincing case for the necessity of activism -- the book is not only funny but is also a ringing call for citizens to participate in making their own history.
Pluto Press 2003 182 pages

China vs America: a warning

Letwin, Oliver
"China's rise as a global superpower has completely reshaped the landscape of international politics. As the country's authoritarian regime becomes increasingly assertive on the world stage, the United States grows ever more hostile to its Asian rival. Repressive moves by China in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, military activities in the South China Sea and Western measures against Chinese companies have only exacerbated tensions. While the great powers of East and West battle over hegemony, the world is being led inexorably towards a new Cold War. During his time as a Cabinet minister attending National Security Council meetings, Oliver Letwin realised that there was no agreement among Western politicians and academics on how to conduct a peaceful long-term relationship with China. China vs America traces the contours of history, both ancient and modern, to explain how China has emerged as a challenger to American power in the twenty-first century and why this has created such uneasiness in the West. In this robust and controversial assessment, Letwin argues that the international rules-based order is completely ill-equipped to foster a positive relationship between China and the United States and that the global community must act now to correct the collision course these two behemoths are currently on before it's too late"--Publisher's description.
Biteback Publishing Ltd 2021 280 pages

Revolution from abroad : the Soviet conquest of Poland's western Ukraine and western Belorussia

Gross, Jan Tomasz
Jan Gross describes the terrors of the Soviet occupation of the lands that made up eastern Poland between the two world wars: the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. His lucid analysis of the revolution that came to Poland from abroad is based on hundreds of first-hand accounts of the hardship, suffering, and social chaos that accompanied the Sovietization of this poorest section of a poverty-stricken country. Woven into the author's exploration of events from the Soviet's German-supported aggression against Poland in September of 1939 to Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, these testimonies not only illuminate his conclusions about the nature of totalitarianism but also make a powerful statement of their own. Those who endured the imposition of Soviet rule and mass deportations to forced resettlement, labor camps, and prisons of the Soviet Union are here allowed to speak for themselves, and they do so with grim effectiveness.
Princeton Univ. Press 2002-05-12 396 pages

Tudor England and its neighbours

Glenn Richardson,Susan Doran
This new study of Tudor international relations is the first in nearly thirty years. Adopting a fresh approach to the subject, this lively collection presents the work of a team of established and younger scholars who discuss how the Tudor monarchs made sense of the world beyond England's shores. Taking account of recent developments in cultural, gender and institutional history, the contributors analyse the important changes and continuities in England's foreign policy during the Tudor age. Tudor England and its Neighbours addresses key questions such as: - Did Henry VII break with the past by pursuing peace with France? - What was the impact of the break with Rome and the introduction of Protestantism on England's relations with other countries? - Was war between Elizabethan England and Spain inevitable? Using new evidence and reinterpreting traditional narratives, these essays illuminate the complexities and the sometimes surprising subtleties of England's international relations between 1485 and 1603.
Palgrave Macmillan 2005-01-20 277 pages

Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the origins of the Arab/Israeli conflict

Judis, John B.
"A probing look at one of the most incendiary subjects of our time--the relationship between the United States and Israel. There has been more than half a century of raging conflict between Jews and Arabs--a violent, costly struggle that has had catastrophic repercussions in a critical region of the world. In Genesis, John B. Judis argues that, while Israelis and Palestinians must shoulder much of the blame, the United States has been the principal power outside the region since the end of World War II and as such must account for its repeated failed efforts to resolve this enduring strife. The fatal flaw in American policy, Judis shows, can be traced back to the Truman years. What happened between 1945 and 1949 sealed the fate of the Middle East for the remainder of the century. As a result, understanding that period holds the key to explaining almost everything that follows--right down to George W. Bush's unsuccessful and ill-conceived effort to win peace through holding elections among the Palestinians, and Barack Obama's failed attempt to bring both parties to the negotiating table. A provocative narrative history animated by a strong analytical and moral perspective, and peopled by colorful and outsized personalities, Genesis offers a fresh look at these critical postwar years, arguing that if we can understand how this stalemate originated, we will be better positioned to help end it"--
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2014 432 pages

Moynihan's moment: America's fight against Zionism as racism

Troy, Gil
On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism. The move shocked millions, especially in the United States-- the country largely responsible for founding the UN. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the American Ambassador to the UN, denounced this attack on Israel as an anti-Semitic assault on democracy and stood up to the Soviet-backed alliance of Communist dictatorships and Third World autocracies that supported the resolution. His eloquent stand brought him celebrity in the U.S., but ultimately shortened his tenure at the UN by alienating American allies, adversaries, and much of the foreign policy establishment--including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Nevertheless, Moynihan's moment was a turning point: a harbinger of a shift in American culture and politics that would culminate in the Reagan Revolution. Moynihan paved the way for a more muscular, idealistic, neoconservative foreign policy and for a new style of defiant "cowboy" diplomacy. In this book, Gil Troy argues that America's idea of itself--still torn, in the mid-'70s, between post-Vietnam and -Watergate defeatism and a growing sense of optimism--changed with Moynihan, altering both the left and the right in ways that continue to play out in the 21st century. Much of the rhetoric of this era survives in domestic foreign policy debates and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, suggesting that Moynihan's struggle has much to reveal about American politics and its position on the world stage--Publisher's summary.
Oxford University Press 2013 357 pages

The empire and the five kings: America's abdication and the fate of the world

Lévy, Bernard-Henri
"The Empire and the Five Kings is a cri de coeur that draws upon lessons from history and the eternal touchstones of human culture to reveal the stakes facing the West as America retreats from its leadership role, a process that did not begin with Donald Trump's presidency and is not likely to end with him. The crisis is one whose roots can be found as far back as antiquity and whose resolution will require the West to find a new way forward if its principles and values are to survive."--Jacket flap.
Henry Holt and Company 2019 261 pages

Israel, the embattled ally

Safran, Nadav
Through thirty turbulent years, the United States has been deeply enmeshed in Israel’s destiny. Seldom in the history of international relations has such a world power been involved so intensely for so long with such a small power. How this phenomenon came to pass and how it will affect the future are explained in this compelling history of Israel and its relations with the United States—from the 1947 United Nations resolution through Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy to Carter’s peace campaign.To form the backdrop for this extraordinary relationship, Nadav Safran paints a detailed portrait of the historical forces that combined to create the Jewish state. He unfolds panel after panel of Israeli life—its physical environment, people, economy, politics, and religion. He examines Israel’s responses to the many security crises it has faced since becoming a nation, and presents a clear and thorough exposition of its defense strategy and descriptions of all its wars.Safran then presents his brilliant analysis of Israel and America in international politics. Cutting through the tangle of the Arab–Israeli conflict, the East–West struggle, the disagreement among Western powers, the conflicts within and among the Arab states, and the impact of special interest groups in the United States on its foreign policy, Safran deftly pursues fluctuations in the American–Israeli relationship as it moved from simple friendship to an alliance of friends. A concluding chapter recapitulates the highlights of that evolution and projects its relevance for the future of the Middle East and American–Israeli relations.
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 1978-02-27 633 pages

The art of diplomacy: strengthening the Canada-U.S. relationship in times of uncertainty

Heyman, Bruce,Heyman, Vicki
A personal and insightful call to action and a much-needed book about one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world—the relationship between Canada and the US—and why diplomacy matters now more than ever before. All over the world, diplomacy is under threat. Diplomats used to handle sensitive international negotiations, but increasingly, incendiary Tweets and bombastic public statements are posing a threat to foreign relations. In The Art of Diplomacy , the former US ambassador to Canada, Bruce Heyman, and his partner, Vicki Heyman, spell out why diplomacy and diplomats matter, especially in today’s turbulent times. This dynamic power couple arrived in Canada intent on representing American interests, but they quickly learned that to do so meant representing the shared interests of all citizens—no matter what side of the 49th parallel they happened to live on. Bruce and Vicki narrate their three years in Canada spent journeying across the country and meeting Canadians from all walks of life—including Supreme Court justices, prime ministers, fishermen, farmers, artists, and entrepreneurs. They tell the behind-the-scenes stories of how their team helped bring Obama to Canada and Trudeau to the US. They also reveal the importance of creating cultural and artistic exchange between Canada and the US, of promoting economic and trade interests, and overall, of making a lasting positive impact on one of the most important relationships in the free world today. This politically poignant and heartfelt memoir is a call to action, a reminder that only by working together to protect our shared values—the environment, social justice and human rights—can nations build a better world for all. As their long-time friend and colleague President Obama once said, “The world needs more Canada.” At this key moment in history, when opposing nationalist and populist agendas threaten to divide us, The Art of Diplomacy reminds us to keep calm, to work together and to carry on.
Simon & Schuster 2019-04-30 267 pages

Don't wait for the next war: a strategy for American growth and global leadership

Clark, Wesley K.
With the end of the Cold War came not the end of history, but the end of America's sense of its strategic purpose in the world. Then, after a decade of drift, the US was violently dragged back into international conflict. Its armed forces responded magnificently but its leaders' objectives were substantially flawed. We fought the wrong war—twice—for reasons that were opaque, and few American citizens understood the cause for which their sons and daughters were fighting and dying. War is a poor substitute for strategic vision, and decisions made in the heat of imminent conflict are often limited by the emotions of the moment. In Don't Wait for the Next War , Wesley K. Clark, a retired four-star general of the US army and former Democratic candidate for president, presents a compelling argument for continued American global leadership and the basis on which it can succeed—a new American strategy. America needs both new power and deeper perspective. The platform for American leadership is to use America's energy resources to spark sustainable economic growth, building new strength to deal with pressing domestic issues like the deficit as well as the longer term challenges to US security—terrorism, cyber threats, the next financial crisis, China's rising power, and climate change. Such a strategy is not only achievable but essential, and it is urgently needed. This is the true test of American leadership for the next two decades, but it must start now, so America has the power and vision to deal with the acute crises that will inevitably come—in the Mideast, Europe, or Asia.
PublicAffairs 2016-06-14 272 pages

The secret war with Iran: the 30-year covert struggle for control of a 'rogue' state

Bergman, Ronen
In the years since 9/11, the U.S. war on terror has focused on al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Coverage of Iran has been devoted almost exclusively to its nuclear ambitions. Yet, as this investigative history reveals, for thirty years Iran has been the world's leading sponsor of global terror. Bergman, one of Israel's top investigative reporters, gained unprecedented access to sources in the Mossad and intelligence agencies around the world. Based on over ten years of research and hundreds of interviews with key intelligence figures, he reveals that Iranian terrorist masterminds have crisscrossed the globe, conducting bombings and assassinations with impunity. In response, a vast clandestine war has been fought with Iran and Hizballah on one side and the CIA, Israel's Mossad, and their European counterparts on the other. The full story of that secret war, told here, will fundamentally change the debate about U.S. national security priorities --
Oneworld 2009-04-16 417 pages

Shaped by war and trade: international influences on American political development

Ira Katznelson,Martin Shefter
In the twenty-first century, globalization poses major challenges to the key players in U.S. domestic politics--challenges similar to many that Americans have faced from abroad since the nation's founding. But it is only in recent decades that links have been drawn between the study of American political development and international relations; even now, emphasis falls primarily on how domestic politics affects the world arena. This book redresses the imbalance. Ten leading scholars explore how, over the past two centuries, the changing positions of the United States in the world economy and in the international political order have shaped U.S. political institutions and domestic politics. Ira Katznelson, Aristide R. Zolberg, and Robert O. Keohane demonstrate the central role that efforts to contend with foreign military and economic competition played in forming the major institutions of U.S. government from the framing of the Constitution through the Civil War. Martin Shefter, Theda Skocpol (writing with Ziad Munson, Andrew Karch, and Bayliss Camp), Ronald Rogowski, and Judith Goldstein show how the nation's political institutions were transformed by problems of war and trade the U.S. subsequently faced. Aaron L. Friedberg, Bartholomew H. Sparrow, and Peter A. Gourevitch conclude the volume by analyzing how international conflicts during and after the Cold War influenced governmental institutions and domestic politics in the United States over the past fifty years. Shaped by War and Trade sets the agenda for further exploration of a topic whose discussion is long overdue.
Princeton University Press 2002-04-21 372 pages

Three empires on the Nile: the Victorian jihad, 1869-1899

Green, Dominic
A secular regime is toppled by Western intervention, but an Islamic backlash turns the liberators into occupiers. Caught between interventionists at home and fundamentalists abroad, a prime minister flounders as his ministers betray him, alliances fall apart, and a runaway general makes policy in the field. As the media accuse Western soldiers of barbarity and a region slides into chaos, the armies of God clash on an ancient river and an accidental empire arises. This is not the Middle East of the early twenty-first century. It is Africa in the late nineteenth century, when the river Nile became the setting for an extraordinary collision between Europeans, Arabs, and Africans. A human and religious drama, the conflict defined the modern relationship between the West and the Islamic world. The story is not only essential for understanding the modern clash of civilizations but is also a gripping, epic, tragic adventure. "Three Empires on the Nile" tells of the rise of the first modern Islamic state and its fateful encounter with the British Empire of Queen Victoria. Ever since the self-proclaimed Islamic messiah known as the Mahdi gathered an army in the Sudan and besieged and captured Khartoum under its British overlord Charles Gordon, the dream of a new caliphate has haunted modern Islamists. Today, Shiite insurgents call themselves the Mahdi Army, and Sudan remains one of the great fault lines of battle between Muslims and Christians, blacks and Arabs. The nineteenth-century origins of it all were even more dramatic and strange than today's headlines. In the hands of Dominic Green, the story of the Nile's three empires is an epic in the tradition of Kipling, the bard of empire, and Winston Churchill, who fought in the final destruction of the Mahdi's army. It is a sweeping and very modern tale of God and globalization, slavers and strategists, missionaries and messianists. A pro-Western regime collapses from its own corruption, a jihad threatens the global economy, a liberation movement degenerates into a tyrannical cult, military intervention goes wrong, and a temporary occupation lasts for decades. In the rise and fall of empires, we see a parable for our own times and a reminder that, while American military involvement in the Islamic world is the beginning of a new era for America, it is only the latest chapter in an older story for the people of the region.
Free Press 2007-01-09 328 pages

The league of nations

Henig, Ruth B.
Ninety years ago, the League of Nations convened for the first time hoping to create a safeguard against destructive, world-wide war by settling disputes through diplomacy. This book looks at how the League was conceptualized and explores the multifaceted body that emerged. This new form for diplomacy was used in ensuing years to counter territorial ambitions and restrict armaments, as well as to discuss human rights and refugee issues. The League's failure to prevent World War II, however, would lead to its dissolution and the subsequent creation of the United Nations. As we face new forms of global crisis, this timely book asks if the UN's fate could be ascertained by reading the history of its predecessor.
Haus Histories 2010 240 pages

U.S.-Soviet security cooperation: achievements, failures, lessons

George, Alexander L.,Farley, Philip J.,Dallin, Alexander
The first comprehensive and systematic analysis of American and Soviet security cooperation since World War II, this volume expertly examines the pursuit of arms control, the search for stability, and the balance of power between the two countries. The twenty-one case studies, each commissioned from a highly qualified specialist on the subject in question, probe a wide range of global, regional, and bilateral situations and issues, including both successful and unsuccessful instances of cooperation. Developing a rigorous theoretical framework for analyzing and comparing these diverse cases, the contributors cast new light on the history of superpower relations.
Oxford University Press 1988-04-07 746 pages

George Kennan: a study of character

Lukacs, John
A profoundly moving biographical study of George Kennan by the fine historian John Lukacs A man of impressive mental powers, of extraordinary intellectual range, and--last but not least--of exceptional integrity, George Frost Kennan (1904-2005) was an adviser to presidents and secretaries of state, with a decisive role in the history of this country (and of the entire world) for a few crucial years in the 1940s, after which he was made to retire; but then he became a scholar who wrote seventeen books, scores of essays and articles, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir. He also wrote remarkable public lectures and many thousands of incisive letters, laying down his pen only in the hundredth year of his life. Having risen within the American Foreign Service and been posted to various European capitals, and twice to Moscow, Kennan was called back to Washington in 1946, where he helped to inspire the Truman Doctrine and draft the Marshall Plan. Among other things, he wrote the "X" or "Containment" article for which he became, and still is, world famous (an article which he regarded as not very important and liable to misreading). John Lukacs describes the development and the essence of Kennan's thinking; the--perhaps unavoidable--misinterpretations of his advocacies; his self-imposed task as a leading realist critic during the Cold War; and the importance of his work as a historian during the second half of his long life.
Yale University Press 2009 207 pages

A present of things past

Draper, Theodore
"Theodore Draper is one of the two or three most cogent and thoughtful social historians in the United States today. Everything he writes merits close attention." -Irving Howe "Theodore Draper is a historian of today's world in a class by himself-formidably equipped with learning and experience, fearless in attacking the naivet of the left and the cruelty of the right." -Alfred Kazin Theodore Draper is one of America's most trenchant and informed critics. A Present of Things Past gathers together ten of his most recent and most powerful selected essays, in which Draper, with his customary acuity and wit, tackles a host of issues that define America's political culture. A Present of Things Past is concerned with a reexamination of the Second World War in both its military and its political aspects; the trajectory of American conservatism as it manifested itself during the Reagan years; the rise of Gorbachev and the history of "reform" in the Soviet Union; the revisionist debate over the origins and history of American communism; and the persistent mystery of a man named Max Eitingon, who was, depending on one's reading of the sources, either an important figure in the history of psychoanalysis or an agent of the Soviet secret police, or both. In "American Hubris," Draper illuminates the assumptions that have guided American foreign policy in the postwar period, and concludes that our costly misadventures-in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, and elsewhere-cannot be considered a string of aberrations. They were, he argues, a consequence of the Truman Doctrine. In "Reagan's Junta," Draper observes: "This is supposed to have been the era of the imperial presidency. It has turned out to be the era of presidencies that have tried to make themselves imperial-and failed." Throughout these compelling essays, Draper demonstrates the uses and abuses to which history has been put by ideologues of both the left and the right. He finds unacceptable, for example, the practice of many journalists of fictionalizing their sources. The New York Times has called Draper "one of the clearer-eyed observers of the issues that torment us." A Present of Things Past enhances that reputation. Theodore Draper is the author of numerous books, including Present History: On Nuclear War, Dtente & Other Controversies and American Communism. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and lives in Princeton, New Jersey. "Is especially recommended for students of political science, the Cold War era, and twentieth century American history as a powerful, thought-provoking view of the people and events that shaped nations, and through nations the world."-- Library Bookwatch
Transaction Publishers 2002 305 pages