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Blue and Gray Diplomacy
In this examination of Union and Confederate foreign relations
during the Civil War from both European and American perspectives,
Howard Jones demonstrates that the consequences of the conflict
between North and South reached far beyond American soil. Jones
explores a number of themes, including the international economic
and political dimensions of the war, the North's attempts to block
the South from winning foreign recognition as a nation, Napoleon
III's meddling in the war and his attempt to restore French power
in the New World, and the inability of Europeans to understand the
interrelated nature of slavery and union, resulting in their
tendency to interpret the war as a senseless struggle between a
South too large and populous to have its independence denied and a
North too obstinate to give up on the preservation of the Union.
Most of all, Jones explores the horrible nature of a war that
attracted outside involvement as much as it repelled it. Written in
a narrative style that relates the story as its participants saw it
play out around them, Blue and Gray Diplomacy depicts the
complex set of problems faced by policy makers from Richmond and
Washington to London, Paris, and St. Petersburg.
eBook
Assuming the Burden
This beautifully crafted and solidly researched book explains why and how the United States made its first commitment to Vietnam in the late 1940s. Mark Atwood Lawrence deftly explores the process by which the Western powers set aside their fierce disagreements over colonialism and extended the Cold War fight into the Third World. Drawing on an unprecedented array of sources from three countries, Lawrence illuminates the background of the U.S. government's decision in 1950 to send military equipment and economic aid to bolster France in its war against revolutionaries. That decision, he argues, marked America's first definitive step toward embroilment in Indochina, the start of a long series of moves that would lead the Johnson administration to commit U.S. combat forces a decade and a half later. Offering a bold new interpretation, the author contends that the U.S. decision can be understood only as the result of complex transatlantic deliberations about colonialism in Southeast Asia in the years between 1944 and 1950. During this time, the book argues, sharp divisions opened within the U.S., French, and British governments over Vietnam and the issue of colonialism more generally. While many liberals wished to accommodate nationalist demands for self-government, others backed the return of French authority in Vietnam. Only after successfully recasting Vietnam as a Cold War conflict between the democratic West and international communism-a lengthy process involving intense international interplay-could the three governments overcome these divisions and join forces to wage war in Vietnam. One of the first scholars to mine the diplomatic materials housed in European archives, Lawrence offers a nuanced triangulation of foreign policy as it developed among French, British, and U.S. diplomats and policymakers. He also brings out the calculations of Vietnamese nationalists who fought bitterly first against the Japanese and then against the French as they sought their nation's independence.Assuming the Burdenis an eloquent illustration of how elites, operating outside public scrutiny, make decisions with enormous repercussions for decades to come.
eBook
JFK and de Gaulle
Despite French President Charles de Gaulle's persistent efforts
to constructively share French experience and use his resources to
help engineer an American exit from Vietnam, the Kennedy
administration responded to de Gaulle's peace initiatives with
bitter silence and inaction. The administration's response ignited
a series of events that dealt a massive blow to American prestige
across the globe, resulting in the deaths of over fifty-eight
thousand American soldiers and turning hundreds of thousands of
Vietnamese citizens into refugees.
This history of Franco-American relations during the Kennedy
presidency explores how and why France and the US disagreed over
the proper western strategy for the Vietnam War. France clearly had
more direct political experience in Vietnam, but France's postwar
decolonization cemented Kennedy's perception that the French were
characterized by a toxic mixture of short-sightedness,
stubbornness, and indifference to the collective interests of the
West.
At no point did the Kennedy administration give serious
consideration to de Gaulle's proposals or entertain the notion of
using his services as an honest broker in order to disengage from a
situation that was rapidly spiraling out of control. Kennedy's
Francophobia, the roots of which appear in a selection of private
writings from Kennedy's undergraduate years at Harvard, biased his
decision-making. The course of action Kennedy chose in 1963, a
rejection of the French peace program, all but handcuffed Lyndon
Johnson into formally entering a war he knew the United States had
little chance of winning.
eBook
American By Degrees
In An American by Degrees Robert Young explores Ambassador Jusserand's life and legacy. Fluent in English, married to an American, and a historian who was a frequent guest at many American universities, Jusserand deftly cultivated American sympathies for France. His tasks as a diplomat were formidable, whether during the period of America's war-time neutrality - when France was nearly over-run by the German army - or when as allies they competed for control of the peace process or sought to resolve post-war issues like disarmament, war debts, and reparations. Jusserand relentlessly reminded Americans that France had been an ally during their Revolution and that their concept of \"civilization\" was part of France's intellectual and cultural legacy. His emphasis on their shared history was natural, as befitted the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History and only the second foreigner to serve as president of the American Historical Association.
eBook
France, Britain and the United States in the twentieth century, 1900-1940 : a reappraisal
\"Why is France so often neglected in the study of international relations? This book seeks to redress this balance, providing an in-depth insight into the relationship between the two Anglo-Saxon Powers, the United States (USA) and the United Kingdom (UK), and France from 1900 to the Fall of France in 1940. Drawing on a range of sources and archival material, Williams links the evolution of this complex relationship to the parallel evolution of the study and practice of international relations and suggests that the Anglo-Saxon bias within international relations has obscured the vital contribution made by France to our thinking about the subject. The differing reaction in France, the UK and the USA over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq shows just how contemporary a topic this is, and its continued relevance to global politics\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
France and the American Civil War
France's involvement in the American Civil War was critical to its unfolding, but the details of the European power's role remain little understood. Here, Steve Sainlaude offers the first comprehensive history of French diplomatic engagement with the Union and the Confederate States of America during the conflict. Drawing on archival sources that have been neglected by scholars up to this point, Sainlaude overturns many commonly held assumptions about French relations with the Union and the Confederacy. As Sainlaude demonstrates, no major European power had a deeper stake in the outcome of the conflict than France. Reaching beyond the standard narratives of this history, Sainlaude delves deeply into questions of geopolitical strategy and diplomacy during this critical period in world affairs. The resulting study will help shift the way Americans look at the Civil War and extend their understanding of the conflict in global context.
eBook