American Power in the Netherlands

David J. Snyder is an independent historian based in the USA. He is the co-editor of Rebellion in Black and White: Southern Student Activism in the 1960s (2013), Reasserting America in the 1970s: US Public Diplomacy and the Rebuilding of America’s Image Abroad (2016), and The Legacy of J. William Fulbright: Policy, Power, and Ideology (2019). He has been a Netherlands-America Foundation/Fulbright Fellow to the Netherlands and was a Residential Fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo.

The product of years of research and deep reflection, this book draws on extensive Dutch and American archives. David Snyder explores the Dutch ambivalence toward the United States in an original way, showing how Dutch leaders skillfully used dependence on American power and aid to shape the postwar future of the Netherlands. His innovative application of clientelism offers an important and insightful transatlantic perspective.

• Introduction: Patronage and Clientelism in the Postwar World1. War and Renewal2. The Years of Uncertainty, 1945–1946 3. The Crisis Years: Expropriating American Power, 1946–19484. American Power Becomes Decisive, 1948–19515. Dutch Military Clientelism: Securing the Verzorgingsstaat, 1949–19536. Cultural and Information Programming, 1948–19557. Reasserting Autonomy: Productivity, Austerity, and the Dutch Harmony Model, 1951–19548. The Waning of the American Era, 1955–1959Conclusion: The Meaning of Clientelism in the American CenturyBibliographyIndex