In this long-awaited successor to his #1 national bestseller The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam describes in fascinating human detail how the shadow of the Cold War still hangs over American foreign policy and how domestic politics have determined our role as a world power.
More than twenty-five years ago Halberstam told the riveting story of the men who conceived and executed the Vietnam War. Today the Pulitzer Prize- winning author has written another unforgettable chronicle of Washington politics, this time exploring the complex dynamics of foreign policy in post-Cold War America.
Halberstam brilliantly evokes the internecine conflicts, the untrammeled egos, and the struggles for dominance among the key figures in the White House, the State Department, and the military. He shows how the decisions of men who served in the Vietnam War -- such as General Colin Powell and presidential advisers Richard Holbrooke and Anthony Lake -- and those who did not have shaped American politics and policy makers (perhaps most notably, President Clinton's placing, for the first time in fifty years, domestic issues over foreign policy).
With his uncanny ability to find the real story behind the headlines, Halberstam shows how current events in the Balkans, Somalia, and Haiti reflect American politics and foreign policy. He discusses the repercussions in Washington on policy makers from two different administrations; the wariness of the American military to become caught again in an inconclusive ground war; the frustrations of civilian advisers, most of whom have never served in the military; and the effects these conflicting forces have on the American commander in Kosovo, General Wes Clark.
Sweeping in its scope and impressive in its depth, War in a Time of Peace provides fascinating portraits of Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Kissinger, James Baker, Dick Cheney, Madeleine Albright, and others, to reveal a stunning view of modern political America.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of 17 books, David Halberstam has a gift for bringing current events alive and putting them into historical perspective in an engaging way. In many respects, War in a Time of Peace serves as a sequel to his classic The Best and the Brightest in its examination of how the lessons of Vietnam have influenced American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. Beginning with the Persian Gulf War, Halberstam discusses the political shift in emphasis from foreign to domestic issues that ushered in the first Clinton administration. Despite the fact that Clinton, along with much of the country, preferred to focus on the home front, the U.S. nonetheless found itself drawn into conflicts in Haiti, Somalia, and the Balkans--events that reflected American discomfort with the use of its military forces abroad while at the same time acknowledging that much of the world is dependent upon the U.S. for both guidance and support. The book also highlights the many nonpolitical factors that have influenced these political changes, including a generational shift in national leadership, the modern media's emphasis on entertainment over foreign news, a leap in military technology, and American economic prosperity that has rendered foreign policy largely irrelevant to many citizens.
Halberstam is a master at presenting well-rounded portraits and telling anecdotes of the personalities that have created U.S. policy, casting new light on well-known figures such as Clinton, Colin Powell, and George H.W. Bush, as well as supporting players such as Anthony Lake, Richard Holbrooke, James Baker, Madeleine Albright, General Wesley Clark, Al Gore, and many other influential American leaders of the past decade. Having covered many aspects of American history and foreign policy since the early 1960s, Halberstam is uniquely qualified to report on an era in which the U.S., and the world, has changed so dramatically. --Shawn Carkonen
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
A portrait of the 1990s from the viewpoint of the 1990s?:
As I finished this book, I couldn't help think how out of date it feels. Although Halberstam mentions terrorist threats on the very last page of the book; the African embassy bombings, the USS Cole attack, the Khobar towers bombing, and President Clinton and Sandy Berger's chase after Al Queda appear nowhere. Honestly, most of the other large-scale foreign policy incidents of the 1990s (Somalia, Haiti, Iraq) take a back seat to the Bosnian and Kosovar conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. This book's subtitle... more info
Halberstam does it again:
David Halberstam delivers another masterpiece in his book on how the Balkan crisis came about. This book is very fair condemning Bush Sr, Clinotn and all of the generals including Colin Powell for their actions in this area. The United States dropped the ball in stabilizing this region leaving it to the European Union to debate about. Our unwillingness to commit troops has led to more than a decade of crisis and halberstam delivers the story in great detail. Highly recommend if you are just starting to... more info
Wars abound:
The end of the Cold War at the beginning of the 1990s seemed to usher in a new era of hope, promise, and peace. This book shows that the last expectation was wholly false. The 1990s saw more American military interventions into other countries than any other decade of American history. Haiti, Iraq, Mogadishu, Kosovo and Croatia are some of the numerous battlefronts on which American troops were sent to serve. This book chronicles this decade, and shows how the US was inexplicably drawn into each of these... more info
cogent, critical analysis of Presidents and their foreign policies:
This analysis of policies of George H.W. Bush and William J. (Bill) Clinton offers a cogent, critical, where necessary, analysis of these Presidents and their foreign policies. It also offers an analysis of the shortcomings of both men, in domestic, as well as foreign relations. It shows the strengths and weaknesses of Bush and Clinton.
Bush, the economy, which may have cost him the election. Clinton, foreign policy and a military diminished by cuts, to promote the domestic agenda, which, some might... more info
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