Robert P. Newman – författare

Owen Lattimore and the Loss of China explores one of the most contentious debates in mid-20th-century American history, centered on the fall of China to communism and the U.S. response to this geopolitical shift. At the heart of the controversy was Owen Lattimore, a distinguished scholar of China and Asia, who became a lightning rod for accusations during the Red Scare. Senator Joseph McCarthy and his allies cast Lattimore as a Communist conspirator responsible for America's "failure" in Asia, despite the lack of evidence and his persona non grata status in the Soviet Union. The book delves into the complex interplay of political paranoia, Cold War ideology, and the demonization of intellectuals, revealing how Lattimore’s advocacy for diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China positioned him as both a visionary and a scapegoat.Drawing on newly available archival materials and Lattimore’s personal papers, the book paints a detailed portrait of the man behind the headlines, his scholarship, and the historical forces that sought to silence him. Through rigorous investigation, it also examines the broader implications of the era's anti-Communist fervor, from academic freedom to the shaping of U.S. foreign policy in Asia. This work is more than a biography; it is a critical study of American political culture and the enduring legacy of the Cold War's impact on public discourse and policy.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.

Owen Lattimore and the Loss of China explores one of the most contentious debates in mid-20th-century American history, centered on the fall of China to communism and the U.S. response to this geopolitical shift. At the heart of the controversy was Owen Lattimore, a distinguished scholar of China and Asia, who became a lightning rod for accusations during the Red Scare. Senator Joseph McCarthy and his allies cast Lattimore as a Communist conspirator responsible for America's "failure" in Asia, despite the lack of evidence and his persona non grata status in the Soviet Union. The book delves into the complex interplay of political paranoia, Cold War ideology, and the demonization of intellectuals, revealing how Lattimore’s advocacy for diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China positioned him as both a visionary and a scapegoat.Drawing on newly available archival materials and Lattimore’s personal papers, the book paints a detailed portrait of the man behind the headlines, his scholarship, and the historical forces that sought to silence him. Through rigorous investigation, it also examines the broader implications of the era's anti-Communist fervor, from academic freedom to the shaping of U.S. foreign policy in Asia. This work is more than a biography; it is a critical study of American political culture and the enduring legacy of the Cold War's impact on public discourse and policy.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.

Lillian Hellman's memoirs are as notable for what they omit as for what they reveal. In An Unfinished Woman (1969), she notes that, although she kept an extensive diary of her Moscow trip in the winter of 1944-45, ""No where is there a record of . . . how close I felt then and now to a State Department career man whose future, seven or eight years later, went down the drain for no reason except the brutal cowardice of his colleagues under the hammering of Joe McCarthy.""The State Department career man is John Fremont Melby, principal author of the government's China White Paper of 1949. Hellman and Melby met in Russia, fell in love, talked often of marriage, and, during their separations over the next thirty years, wrote each other voluminously. When Hellman appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the famous confrontation of May 21, 1952, she was anxious to protect not the Hollywood leftists she had known but Melby and Averell Harriman, the former American ambassador to Russia under whose roof she began her affair with Melby.The Cold War Romance of Lillian Hellman and John Melby is the story of their affair, certainly one of the most intense of Hellman's life. It is also the story of Hellman's role in Melby's seven Loyalty-Security hearings, extending over eighteen months. The transcripts of these hearings, divulged here for the first time, reveal far more about her politics than does her brief appearance before the HUAC. Melby was fired from the State Department in 1953 by John Foster Dulles because of his affair with Hellman and because he would not repudiate her. It was a pure case of ""guilt by association.""This is a tale of politics, personalities, and passion. Based on Hellman's and Melby's letters, FBI and Passport Office files, transcripts of Melby's hearings, and the files of Hellman's lawyer, Joseph Rauh, this book establishes that Hellman's association with the Communist party was fleeting. But more importantly, it is a compelling account of a love affair that was aborted and then revived by the Cold War.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

This book is a review of major post-World War II American foreign policy decisions made by authorities who were blinded by ideology. In each of the nine situations examined, accurate evidence was available and even known to many of the decision makers, but chauvinism, anti-Communism, or willful left-wing or right-wing ideological predilections carried the day. In the preface, Newman takes as his guiding light the words of Corey Robin: «The twentieth century, it’s said, taught us a simple lesson about politics: of all the motivations for political action, none is as lethal as ideology. The lust for money may be distasteful, the desire for power ignoble, but neither will drive its devotees to the criminal excess of an idea on the march.»The analytical-critical essays comprising this volume sweep across the post-war period, from the Hiroshima decision through Bush and Iraq. Government documents, scholarly analyses, and Newman’s own acerbic arguments both entertain and inform readers.