The Dissent Papers

The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond

Hannah Gurman (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

296 Seiten

2012
Columbia University Press (Verlag)
978-0-231-15872-5 (ISBN)

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Beginning with the Cold War and concluding with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Hannah Gurman explores the overlooked opposition of U.S. diplomats to American foreign policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. During America's reign as a dominant world power, U.S. presidents and senior foreign policy officials largely ignored or rejected their diplomats' reports, memos, and telegrams, especially when they challenged key policies relating to the Cold War, China, and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The Dissent Papers recovers these diplomats' invaluable perspective and their commitment to the transformative power of diplomatic writing. Gurman showcases the work of diplomats whose opposition enjoyed some success. George Kennan, John Stewart Service, John Paton Davies, George Ball, and John Brady Kiesling all caught the attention of sitting presidents and policymakers, achieving temporary triumphs yet ultimately failing to change the status quo. Gurman follows the circulation of documents within the State Department, the National Security Council, the C.I.A., and the military, and she details the rationale behind "The Dissent Channel," instituted by the State Department in the 1970s, to both encourage and contain dissent.
Advancing an alternative narrative of modern U.S. history, she connects the erosion of the diplomatic establishment and the weakening of the diplomatic writing tradition to larger political and ideological trends while, at the same time, foreshadowing the resurgent significance of diplomatic writing in the age of Wikileaks.

Hannah Gurman is a clinical assistant professor at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she teaches history, literature, and culture of the United States in the world. Her writing has appeared in Salon and Foreign Policy in Focus, as well as The Journal of Contemporary History, Diplomatic History, and Small Wars Journal.

Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Pen as Sword: George Kennan and the Politics of Authorship in the Early Cold War 2. "Learn to Write Well" The China Hands and the Communist-ification of Diplomatic Reporting 3. Revising the Vietnam Balance Sheet: The Rhetorical Logic of Escalation Versus George Ball's Writerly Logic of Diplomacy 4. The Other Plumbers Unit: The Dissent Channel of the U.S. State Department Conclusion. The Life After: From Internal Dissenter to Public Prophet Notes Bibliography Index

Zusatzinfo	11 illus.
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Europäische / Internationale Politik
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-231-15872-6 / 0231158726
ISBN-13	978-0-231-15872-5 / 9780231158725
Zustand	Neuware