Kevin Ruane - Böcker

This source book chronicles the history of the most controversial conflict of the 20th century, beginning with the birth of the Vietnamese communist party in 1930 and ending with the Vietnamese revolution in 1975. The text combines short essays with original documents to illustrate the debate. Alongside the dominating American intervention, the study also focuses on the international dimension of the conflict, particularly the role of the Soviet, Chinese and British; but it is the Vietnamese perspective that remains key.

Written for undergradaute courses on postwar American foreign policy, Southeast Asian history, the Cold War, the Vietnam war, international relations, decolonization, and third world communism, this introduction uses the wealth of recent research to place the Vietnam war within the contexts of European colonization, American Cold War strategy and Vietnam's own political history

In the spring of 1954, after eight years of bitter fighting, the war in Vietnam between the French and the communist-led Vietminh came to a head. With French forces reeling, the United States planned to intervene militarily to shore-up the anti-communist position. Turning to its allies for support, first and foremost Great Britain, the US administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower sought to create what Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called a “united action” coalition. In the event, Winston Churchill’s Conservative government refused to back the plan. Fearing that US-led intervention could trigger a wider war in which the United Kingdom would be the first target for Soviet nuclear attack, the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, was determined to act as Indochina peacemaker – even at the cost of damage to the Anglo-American “special relationship”.In this important study, Kevin Ruane and Matthew Jones revisit a Cold War episode in which British diplomacy played a vital role in settling a crucial question of international war and peace. Eden’s diplomatic triumph at the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina is often overshadowed by the 1956 Suez Crisis which led to his political downfall. This book, however, recalls an earlier Eden: a skilled and experienced international diplomatist at the height of his powers who may well have prevented a localised Cold War crisis escalating into a general Third World War.

In the spring of 1954 the war in Vietnam between the French and the communist-led Vietminh came to a head. With French forces reeling, the United States prepared to intervene militarily to prevent the further spread of communism. Turning to its allies, first and foremost Britain, to join in what the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called a ‘united action’ coalition. Far from agreeing to participate in a coalition, the British government set out to frustrate US military plans and to work instead for a peaceful negotiated resolution. Ultimately fearing eruption of a Third World War from US intervention, the British envoy led by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden managed to broker a peaceful outcome. Professors Kevin Ruane and Matthew Jones chart the history of this last occasion when British diplomacy played a key if not decisive role in resolving a fundamental issue of war and peace. Eden’s diplomatic victory over the Americans in 1954 is nearly always overshadowed by the catastrophic political outcome for Britain and Eden in the Suez Crisis two year later.This book, however, seeks to counter some of the retrospective blight that Suez has cast over his pre-1956 career and realign Eden's reputation with a more balanced perspective, taking a larger view of his influence on peace in Southeast Asia.

Covering the development of the atomic bomb during the Second World War, the origins and early course of the Cold War, and the advent of the hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s, Churchill and the Bomb in War and Cold War explores a still neglected aspect of Winston Churchill's career – his relationship with and thinking on nuclear weapons. Kevin Ruane shows how Churchill went from regarding the bomb as a weapon of war in the struggle with Nazi Germany to viewing it as a weapon of communist containment (and even punishment) in the early Cold War before, in the 1950s, advocating and arguably pioneering “mutually assured destruction” as the key to preventing the Cold War flaring into a calamitous nuclear war. While other studies of Churchill have touched on his evolving views on nuclear weapons, few historians have given this hugely important issue the kind of dedicated and sustained treatment it deserves. In Churchill and the Bomb in War and Cold War, however, Kevin Ruane has undertaken extensive primary research in Britain, the United States and Europe, and accessed a wide array of secondary literature, in producing an immensely readable yet detailed, insightful and provocative account of Churchill’s nuclear hopes and fears.

Covering the development of the atomic bomb during the Second World War, the origins and early course of the Cold War, and the advent of the hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s, Churchill and the Bomb explores a still neglected aspect of Winston Churchill's career – his relationship with and thinking on nuclear weapons. Kevin Ruane shows how Churchill went from regarding the bomb as a weapon of war in the struggle with Nazi Germany to viewing it as a weapon of communist containment (and even punishment) in the early Cold War before, in the 1950s, advocating and arguably pioneering what would become known as “mutually assured destruction” as the key to preventing the Cold War flaring into a calamitous nuclear war. While other studies of Churchill have touched on his evolving views on nuclear weapons, few historians have given this hugely important issue the kind of dedicated and sustained treatment it deserves. In Churchill and the Bomb, however, Kevin Ruane has undertaken extensive primary research in Britain, the United States and Europe, and accessed a wide array of secondary literature, in producing an immensely readable yet detailed, insightful and provocative account of Churchill’s nuclear hopes and fears.