Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)

You looking to find the "Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)" Good news! You can purchase Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) with secure price and compare to view update price on this product. And deals on this product is available only for limited time.

   

Product Description

For eight years President Dwight Eisenhower claimed to pursue peace and national security. Yet his policies entrenched the United States in a seemingly permanent cold war, a spiraling nuclear arms race, and a deepening state of national insecurity. Ira Chernus uncovers the key to this paradox in Eisenhower's unwavering commitment to a consistent way of talking, in private as well as in public, about the cold war rivalry. Contrary to what most historians have concluded, Eisenhower never aimed at any genuine rapprochement with the Soviet Union. He discourse always assumed that the United States would forever face an enemy bent on destroying it, making national insecurity a permanent way of life. The "peace" he sought was only an endless process of managing apocalyptic threats, a permanent state of "apocalypse management," intended to give the United States unchallenged advantage in every arena of the cold war. The goal and the discourse that supported it were inherently self-defeating. Yet the discourse is Eisenhower's most enduring legacy, for it has shaped U.S. foreign policy ever since, leaving us still a national insecurity state.

Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) Review

This work by noted religious scholar Ira Chernus is an outstanding analysis of Dwight Eisenhower's way of talking about the Soviet threat at a time when most Americans fully expected (or at least could easily imagine) to see a full blown nuclear war in their lifetime. Eisenhower, Chernus argues, tried to braze Americans for a long conflict that was on the one hand a life-and-death struggle against evil, on the other hand an opportunity for Americans to prove their exceptional democratic values. Put differently, while the secret Doolittle Report on CIA covert operations demanded that America adapt every dirty trick in the communist book, Eisenhower publicly talked about Open Skies and the opportunity for world peace. The pieces never quite fit together.

Together with Kenneth Osgood's Total Cold War, this book represents the cutting edge scholarship (post-Eisenhower revisionism, if you will) on America's Cold War, which started in the 1950s and never ended. I assume that Stanford University Press's prohibitively expensive cover price will keep interested readers from purchasing the book. That is too bad, because the book deserves a wider readership. Get it from your library if necessary!

Most of the consumer Reviews tell that the "Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)" are high quality item. You can read each testimony from consumers to find out cons and pros from Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) ...