Making use of newly-researched archival material, this collection of original essays on wartime and postwar US foreign policy re-evaluates well-known crises and documents many less familiar aspects of the nation's mid-twentieth century conflicts. Leading diplomatic historians address familiar subjects from new angles. They offer new evidence about the risks run and the costs incurred in the prosecution of the Cold War, from Korea to the Caribbean. And they provide up-to-date accounting of mid-twentieth century American diplomacy's global purposes and consequences.

RICHARD CROCKATT Reader in American History, University of East Anglia
BRUCE CUMINGS Norman and Edna Freehling Professor of History, University of Chicago
LLOYD C. GARDNER Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History, New Brunswick Campus, Rutgers University, New Jersey
WARREN F. KIMBALL Robert Treat Professor of History, Newark College, Rutgers University
PETER LOWE Reader in History, Manchester University
SCOTT LUCAS Chair, Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham
NICOLA MILLER Reader in Latin American History, University College, London
MARIO RAPOPORT Professor of Economic History and History of International Relations, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
CLAUDIO SPIGUEL Associate Professor of History, University of Buenos Aires

Preface List of Abbreviations Notes on the Contributors Foreword Introduction: Between Past and Prologue; D.Carter & R.Clifton PART I: WORLD WAR AND COLD WAR: MUSHROOMING CONFLICTS The Second World War: Not (Just) the Origins of the Cold War; W.F.Kimball Unconditional Surrender: The Dawn of the Atomic Age; L.C.Gardner PART II: PRIVATES ON PARADE: THE COLD WAR OF WORDS Mobilizing Culture: The State-Private Network and the CIA in the Early Cold War; W.S.Lucas Challenge and Response: Arnold Toynbee and the United States During the Cold War; R.Crockatt PART III: BEYOND THE POLICE ACTION: THE KOREAN WAR Waging Limited Conflict: The Impact of the Korean War on Anglo-American Relations, 1950-1953; P.Lowe War Crimes and Historical Memory: The United Nations Occupation of North Korea in 1950; B.Cumings PART IV: HEMISPHERES OF INFLUENCE: THE UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA The United States, Argentina, and the End of the First Perón Government, 1953-1955; M.Rapoport & C.Spiguel The Real Gap in the Cuban Missile Crisis: The Post Cold War Historiography and the Continuing Omission of Cuba; N.Miller Appendix Index