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Over de Auteur

Warren I. Cohen is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His Columbia University Press books include A Nation Like All Others: A Brief History of American Foreign toon meer Relations (2018) and East Asia at the Center: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World (2000). toon minder

Bevat de naam: Warren. Cohen

Werken van Warren I. Cohen

The Asian American Century (2002) 16 exemplaren
Pacific Passage (1996) 5 exemplaren

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In his book exploring the perceived reasons for American intervention in the Great War, Warren Cohen traces Americans’ disillusionment with the noble-sounding sentiments that Woodrow Wilson employed to galvanise American support for intervention. Patriotic enthusiasm quickly soured from the initial rhetoric of “making the world safe for democracy” and safety of the seas. This was a result of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles coupled with the opening of the Russian archives and the Central Powers’ archives which allowed the world to see the secret treaties and proposed spoils of war, when such a wart occurred.

During the 1920s some key historians (Harry Elmer Barnes, Charles Beard, C. Hartley Grattan, and Charles Callan Tansill) asserted, among other things, that American involvement had been driven by other, more base reasons. Namely, it was argued that the American economy benefitted greatly from trade in munitions to Europe (meaning the Allied powers), and this was facilitated through loans. Not only were manufacturers making wind-fall profits, but bankers needed to be assured that the Allies would win the war or their loans would become worthless. This pushed the Wilson Administration, which already had a tilt toward Britain, to further lean toward the Allied cause. Thus, the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany was merely the casus belli that the Administration needed to ask Congress for a war declaration. The result was a revulsion at the realisation that so many Americans had been sacrificed in a war that was entered to support war profits for the few. These arguments, Cohen asserts, formed the basis of the isolationist movement in American in the 1930s as people sensed the possibility of another European war on the horizon.

This is a fascinating book that traces the formation of intellectual thinking during the interwar years. It goes a long way in explaining the emergence of an isolationist movement in American in the 1930s. Further, it illuminates the trajectory of thought that linked the first to the second World War.
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Blythewood | Jan 31, 2024 |
An excellent review of American foreign policy throughout it's history. The author shows that our past foreign policy has always been a mix of good decisions and bad ones. That all president's have struggled to 'do the right thing", but have at times made some bad moves. One would hope that our people now in charge of these matters would take the time to read this book, and learn and apply it's lessons. To do so would benefit America. To ignore the lessons of yesterday might lead to history repeating itself in a negative way.… (meer)
 
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1Randal | Jun 8, 2018 |
Good basic information, but it's a little dated
½
 
Gemarkeerd
tfns | Aug 13, 2008 |
An excellent survey covering the entirety of US-China relations. Cohen posits that the US entered China on the coattails of the British for commercial reasons. The US perceived itself as China's protector because it did directly intervene in Chinese affairs. It simply benefited from other countries (mainly Britain) gunboat diplomacy. China sort of acknowledged the US as the least bad exploiter, but still imperialist. US policy of non-direct-intervention (which was largely because US interests were never very strong there) continued until the CCP victory in 1949, when "the great anomaly" of blatant hostility occurred until the early 1970's, when Chinese hostility to the Soviets made raproachement more palatable.… (meer)
½
 
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Scapegoats | Oct 20, 2007 |

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Werken
23
Leden
313
Populariteit
#75,401
Waardering
½ 3.5
Besprekingen
4
ISBNs
60
Talen
1
Favoriet
1

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