Douglas Brinkley - Böcker

For decades, Walter Cronkite was known as the most trusted man in America. Millions across the nation welcomed him into their homes, first as a print reporter for the United Press on the front lines of World War II, and later, in the emerging medium of television, as a host of numerous documentary programs and as anchor of the CBS Evening News, from 1962 until his retirement in 1981. Yet this very public figure, undoubtedly the twentieth century's most revered journalist, was a remarkably private man; few know the full story of his life. Drawing on unprecedented access to Cronkite's private papers as well as interviews with his family and friends, Douglas Brinkley now brings this American icon into focus as never before. Brinkley traces Cronkite's story from his roots in Missouri and Texas through the Great Depression, during which he began his career, to World War II, when he gained notice reporting with Allied troops from North Africa, D-day, and the Battle of the Bulge. In 1950, Edward R.Murrow recruited him to work for CBS, where he covered presidential elections, the space program, Vietnam, and the first televised broadcasts of the Olympic Games, as both a reporter and later as an anchor for the evening news. Cronkite was also witness to - and the nation's voice for - many of the most profound moments in modern American history, including the Kennedy assassination, Apollos 11 and 13, Watergate, the Vietnam War, and the Iran hostage crisis. Epic, intimate, and masterfully written, Cronkite is the biography of an extraordinary American life, told by one of our most brilliant and respected historians.

Dean Acheson is best remembered as President Harry Truman's powerful secretary of state, the American father of NATO, and a major architect of U.S. foreign policy in the decade following the Second World War. But Acheson also played a major role in politics and foreign affairs after his tenure in the Truman administration, as an important Democratic Party activist and theorist during the Eisenhower presidency and as a valued adviser during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. This engrossing book, the first to chronicle Acheson's postsecretarial career, paints a portrait of a brilliant, irascible, and powerful man acting during a turbulent period in American history.Drawing on the recently opened Acheson papers as well as on interviews with Acheson's family and with leading public figures of the era, Douglas Brinkley tells an intriguing tale that is part biography, part diplomatic history, and part politics. Brinkley considers Acheson's role in numerous NATO-related debates and task forces, the Berlin and Cuban missile crises, Vietnam War decision-making, the Cyprus dispute of 1964, the anti-de Gaulle initiative of the 1960s, and U.S.-African policy. He describes Acheson as a staunch anticommunist with a persistent Eurocentric focus, a man who was intolerant of American leaders such as George Kennan, J. William Fulbright, and Walter Lippmann for opposing his views, and who often feuded with JFK, LBJ, Robert McNamara, and Dean Rusk. Finally, angered at the activities of anti-Vietnam War liberal Democrats, Acheson found himself in 1969 serving as one of Nixon's most important unofficial foreign policy advisers. Throughout this time, Acheson stayed in the public eye, helped by the six books he wrote after he left office (including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Present at the Creation), his television appearances, lectures, testimony before Congress, and correspondence with European statesmen. Brinkley's book illuminates Acheson as elder statesman and reveals how a unique individual was able to influence policy-making and public opinion without the official trappings of office.

“This book is the fascinating record of DeVoto’s crusade to save the West from itself. . . . His arguments, insights, and passion are as relevant and urgent today as they were when he first put them on paper.”—Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., from the Foreword Bernard DeVoto (1897–1955) was, according to the novelist Wallace Stegner, “a fighter for public causes, for conservation of our natural resources, for freedom of the press and freedom of thought.” A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, DeVoto is best remembered for his trilogy, The Year of Decision: 1846, Across the Wide Missouri, and The Course of Empire. He also wrote a column for Harper’s Magazine, in which he fulminated about his many concerns, particularly the exploitation and destruction of the American West. This volume brings together ten of DeVoto’s acerbic and still timely essays on Western conservation issues, along with his unfinished conservationist manifesto, Western Paradox, which has never before been published. The book also includes a foreword by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who was a student of DeVoto’s at Harvard University, and a substantial introduction by Douglas Brinkley and Patricia Limerick, both of whom shed light on DeVoto’s work and legacy.

In recent years the United Nations has become more active in—and more generally respected for—its peacekeeping efforts than at any other period in its fifty-year history. During the same period, the United States has been engaged in a debate about the place of the U.N. in the conduct of its foreign policy. This book, the first account of the American role in creating the United Nations, tells an engrossing story and also provides a useful historical perspective on the controversy.Prize-winning historians Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley explain how the idea of the United Nations was conceived, debated, and revised, first within the U.S. government and then by negotiation with its major allies in World War II. The experience of the war generated increasing support for the new organization throughout American society, and the U.N. Charter was finally endorsed by the community of nations in 1945. The story largely belongs to President Franklin Roosevelt, who was determined to form an organization that would break the vicious cycle of ever more destructive wars (in contrast to the failed League of Nations), and who therefore assigned collective responsibility for keeping the peace to the five leading U.N. powers—the major wartime Allies.Hoopes and Brinkley focus on Roosevelt but also present vivid portraits of others who played significant roles in bringing the U.N. into being: these include Cordell Hull, Sumner Welles, Dean Acheson, Harry Hopkins, Wendell Willkie, Edward Stettinius, Arthur Vandenberg, Thomas Dewey, William Fulbright, and Walter Lippmann. In an epilogue, the authors discuss the checkered history of the United Nations and consider its future prospects.

This remarkable collection of essays is the result of an international conference of American, British, and Canadian scholars held at Memorial University of Newfoundland that marked the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting.

This volume of essays, written by an eminent group of diplomatic historians, are designed as a tribute to the work of Dean Acheson. As President Truman's Secretary of State between 1949 and 1953, Acheson was a crucial figure in the shaping of the post-war world and was involved in a wide range of issues - from the creation of NATO to the Korean War. Douglas Brinkley is the author of "The Life and Times of James V. Forrestal", "After the Creation - Dean Acheson and American Foreign Policy, 1953-1971" and "Jean Monnet - The Path to European Unity".

Nothing symbolizes the dream of the American West, from its rugged, dramatic landscapes to its cowboy culture, like Stetson. It was founded in 1865 by John B. Stetson, an explorer and adventurer who, during a long Western expedition, fashioned a hat with a high crown and a wide flat brim that could withstand the elements. It worked so well that he decided to mass-produce it. Renowned for its handmade, high-quality hats, Stetson soon came to represent quintessential American values: innovation, resilience, and trailblazing independence. This book celebrates the profound impact and influence of Stetson, and the cowboy aesthetic, on American culture. In sections including Stetson in Song and Stetson on Screen, stunning photographs show a diverse range of musicians who lay claim to the Stetson as part of their image, from Gene Autry and Loretta Lynn to Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson to Beyonce and a who s who of American movie stars from Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood to Jane Fonda and John Travolta up through Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in Barbie showing the many different ways to look good in a Stetson. A throughline of iconic style runs through the book, with images of such American icons as Georgia O Keeffe, Patti Smith, and Lyndon Johnson depicting the timeless look of the Stetson. Heirloom objects, these hats are still handcrafted, and the book explores the couture-like way they re created, including the many ways they can be customized and individually shaped. With evocative archival imagery and glamorous advertisements tracing the history of the brand and highlighting key moments and trends in American history and culture along the way, and with essays by cultural historians contextualizing the significance of Stetson in American culture, this book is an exciting and stunning look at America s most important heritage brand.

More than 100 powerful images by noted photographer Russell Lee that document the working conditions and lives of coal mining communities in the postwar United States; publication coincides with an exhibition at the National Archives in Washington, DC.In 1946 the Truman administration made a promise to striking coal miners: as part of a deal to resume work, the government would sponsor a nationwide survey of health and labor conditions in mining camps. One instrumental member of the survey team was photographer Russell Lee. Lee had made his name during the Depression, when, alongside Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, he used his camera to document agrarian life for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Now he trained his lens on miners and their families to show their difficult circumstances despite their essential contributions to the nation's first wave of postwar growth. American Coal draws from the thousands of photographs that Lee made for the survey-also on view in the US National Archives and Records Administration’s exhibition Power & Light-and includes his original, detailed captions as well as an essay by biographer Mary Jane Appel and historian Douglas Brinkley. They place his work in context and illuminate how Lee helped win improved conditions for his subjects through vivid images that captured an array of miners and their communities at work and at play, at church and in school, in moments of joy and struggle, ultimately revealing to their fellow Americans the humanity and resilience of these underrecognized workers.

Assuming its rightful place of honour on the National Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial is an eloquent and moving tribute to The Greatest Generation. Sixteen million Americans served in the armed forces and more than 400,000 gave their lives and millions supported the war effort from home, all in the name of protecting that which we, as Americans, hold most dear: freedom. The World War II Memorial, published in conjunction with the dedication of this long-overdue memorial, commemorates the everyday Americans who in countless ways rose up to defeat one of history's gravest threats to freedom. Veterans including George H.W. Bush, Sen. Daniel Inouye, former senators Bob Dole and George McGovern, Yogi Berra and many, many others contribute their own personal stories while leading historians look at the military campaigns of the war. The memorial's architect and its sculptor provide insights into how it symbolizes the fortitude and perseverance of a generation and the exclusive photographs present the memorial through all stages of construction. Fittingly, this historic tribute falls in the 60th anniversary year of D-Day, a time when our nation once again reflects on its greatest sacrifice and greatest victory in the name of freedom.