Nixon in the World
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In the 1970s, the United States faced challenges on a number of fronts. By nearly every measure, American power was no longer unrivalled. The task of managing America's relative decline fell to President Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Gerald Ford. From 1969 to 1977, Nixon, Kissinger, and Ford reoriented U.S. foreign policy from its traditional poles of liberal interventionism and conservative isolationism into a policy of active but conservative engagement. In Nixon in the World, seventeen leading historians of the Cold War and U.S. foreign policy show how they did it, where they succeeded, and where they took their new strategy too far. Drawing on newly declassified materials, they provide authoritative and compelling analyses of issues such as Vietnam, detente, arms control, and the U.S.-China rapprochement, creating the first comprehensive volume on American foreign policy in this pivotal era.Features
- Previously unpublished, original chapters by leading experts in the field, concerning a pivotal era in recent American foreign policy
- The first collection of its kind covering the Nixon-Kissinger era
Reviews
"Logevall and Preston have done a splendid job assembling a valuable collection that should help quiet those who continue to celebrate Nixon's diplomatic brilliance."--Melvin Small, The Journal of American History
"An outstanding overview of the Nixon era in international affairs. Nixon in the World helps us better understand both the historical uniqueness of the détente approach, and the reasons for its defeat."--Odd Arne Westad, London School of Economics
"'Rescuing choice from circumstance' was a mantra of Nixon and Kissinger as they tried to steer the ship of state in the face of turmoil abroad and turbulence at home. These essays vividly illuminate the challenges they faced, the methods they employed, and the successes and failures they experienced. The book is a major contribution to our understanding of a fascinating era in the history of U.S. foreign relations."--Melvyn P. Leffler, author of For the Soul of Mankind
"These essays shed much light on the fascinating and elusive Nixon administration. Each is excellent and can be read with profit by itself, but unlike many collections it is even better read cover-to-cover. Both Nixon as a peculiar leader and American foreign policy are revealed in rich detail."--Robert Jervis, author of American Foreign Policy in a New Era
"This volume offers a fresh perspective, and...I highly recommend it to specialists and non-specialists alike." -Dan Caldwell, Journal of Cold War Studies
"An outstanding volume...a book to be read in its entirety." --Diplomatic History
"Nixon in the World casts aside many of the polemics that attached themselves to the thirty-seventh president during the 1970s, and advances in their place a confident yet nuanced story about detente ...Nixon in the World tells a story of U.S. foreign policy during this age of upheaval, and it does so with analytical precision and interpretive balance." --H-Net Reviews
About the Author(s)
Fredrik Logevall is Professor of History at Cornell and the author of Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam, among other works. Andrew Preston is University Lecturer in History and a Fellow of Clare College at Cambridge University and the author of The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam.
