Blind Oracles
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-13387-4 (ISBN)
In this trenchant analysis, historian Bruce Kuklick examines the role of intellectuals in foreign policymaking. He recounts the history of the development of ideas about strategy and foreign policy during a critical period in American history: the era of the nuclear standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union. The book looks at how the country's foremost thinkers advanced their ideas during this time of United States expansionism, a period that culminated in the Vietnam War and detente with the Soviets. Beginning with George Kennan after World War II, and concluding with Henry Kissinger and the Vietnam War, Kuklick examines the role of both institutional policymakers such as those at The Rand Corporation and Harvard's Kennedy School, and individual thinkers including Paul Nitze, McGeorge Bundy, and Walt Rostow. Kuklick contends that the figures having the most influence on American strategy--Kissinger, for example--clearly understood the way politics and the exercise of power affects policymaking. Other brilliant thinkers, on the other hand, often played a minor role, providing, at best, a rationale for policies adopted for political reasons.
At a time when the role of the neoconservatives' influence over American foreign policy is a subject of intense debate, this book offers important insight into the function of intellectuals in foreign policymaking.
Bruce Kuklick is the Nichols Professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written several books in American intellectual history and in American intellectual, political, and diplomatic history.
List of Illustrations xi Note on Citations xiii INTRODUCTION: The Social Role of the Man of Knowledge 1 CHAPTER 1: Scientific Management and War, 1910-1960 17 CHAPTER 2: Theorists of War, 1945-1953 37 CHAPTER 3: RAND in Opposition, 1946-1961 49 CHAPTER 4: Accented and Unaccented Realism, 1946-1961 72 CHAPTER 5: RAND and the Kennedy Administration, 1961-1962 95 CHAPTER 6: Cuba and Nassau, 1962 110 CHAPTER 7: Intellectuals in Power, 1961-1966 128 CHAPTER 8: The Kennedy School of Government, 1964-1971 152 CHAPTER 9: The Pentagon Papers 168 CHAPTER 10: Henry Kissinger 182 CHAPTER 11: Diplomats on Foreign Policy, 1976-2001 204 Conclusion 223 Acknowledgments and Methodological Note 231 Index 235
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 5.8.2007 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 9 halftones. |
| Verlagsort | New Jersey |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 235 mm |
| Gewicht | 369 g |
| Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Europäische / Internationale Politik | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-691-13387-5 / 0691133875 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-691-13387-4 / 9780691133874 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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