From Kites to Cold War

From Kites to Cold War PDF Author: Tyler W Morton
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 168247481X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
From Kites to Cold War tells the story of the evolution of manned airborne reconnaissance. Long a desire of military commanders, the ability to see the terrain ahead and gain foreknowledge of enemy intent was realized when Chinese airmen mounted kites to surveil their surroundings. Kite technology was slow to spread, and by the late nineteenth century European nations had developed the balloon and airship to conduct this mission. By 1918, it was obvious that the airplane had become the reconnaissance platform of the future. Used successfully by many nations during the Great War, aircraft technology and capability experienced its most rapid evolutionary period during World War II. Entering the war with just basic airborne imagery capabilities, by V-E and V-J days, air power pioneers greatly improved imagery collection and developed sophisticated airborne signals intelligence collection capabilities. The United States and other nations put these capabilities to use as the Cold War immediately followed. Flying near the periphery of and sometimes directly over the Soviet Union, airborne reconnaissance provided the intelligence necessary to stay one step ahead of the Soviets throughout the Cold War.

From Kites to Cold War

From Kites to Cold War PDF Author: Tyler W Morton
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 168247481X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book

Book Description
From Kites to Cold War tells the story of the evolution of manned airborne reconnaissance. Long a desire of military commanders, the ability to see the terrain ahead and gain foreknowledge of enemy intent was realized when Chinese airmen mounted kites to surveil their surroundings. Kite technology was slow to spread, and by the late nineteenth century European nations had developed the balloon and airship to conduct this mission. By 1918, it was obvious that the airplane had become the reconnaissance platform of the future. Used successfully by many nations during the Great War, aircraft technology and capability experienced its most rapid evolutionary period during World War II. Entering the war with just basic airborne imagery capabilities, by V-E and V-J days, air power pioneers greatly improved imagery collection and developed sophisticated airborne signals intelligence collection capabilities. The United States and other nations put these capabilities to use as the Cold War immediately followed. Flying near the periphery of and sometimes directly over the Soviet Union, airborne reconnaissance provided the intelligence necessary to stay one step ahead of the Soviets throughout the Cold War.

The Cold War

The Cold War PDF Author: Wendy Conklin
Publisher: Teacher Created Materials
ISBN: 1433390760
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 34

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Book Description
The Cold War was a different kind of war that lasted for more than 40 years. Countries did not shoot at one another, but they spied on and competed against one another. It was a war of beliefs as the United States believed in democracy and the Soviet Union advocated communism.

The Cold War

The Cold War PDF Author: Ralph B. Levering
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118848276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Now available in a fully revised and updated third edition, The Cold War: A Post-Cold War History offers an authoritative and accessible introduction to the history and enduring legacy of the Cold War. Thoroughly updated in light of new scholarship, including revised sections on President Nixon's policies in Vietnam and President Reagan's approach to U.S.-Soviet relations Features six all new “counterparts” sections that juxtapose important historical figures to illustrate the contrasting viewpoints that characterized the Cold War Argues that the success of Western capitalism during the Cold War laid the groundwork for the economic globalization and political democratization that have defined the 21st century Includes extended coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the most dangerous confrontation of the nuclear age thus far

The Cold War

The Cold War PDF Author: Martin Walker
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805034547
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
"The Cold War was more of a global conflict than was either of this century's two major wars; far more than a confrontation between states or even empires, it was, as Martin Walker puts it, "a total war between economic and social systems, an industrial test to destruction."".

Cold War Hothouses

Cold War Hothouses PDF Author: Beatriz Colomina
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1616890878
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
The technological innovation and unprecedented physical growth of the cold war era permeated American life in every aspect and at every scale. From the creation of the military-industrial complex and the beginnings of suburban sprawl to the production of the ballpoint pen and the TV dinner, the artifacts of the period are a numerous and diverse as they are familiar. Over the past half-century, our awe at the advances of postwar society has softened to nostalgia, and our affection for its material culture has clouded our memories of the enormous spatial reorganizations and infrastructural transformations that changed American life forever.

The Cold War

The Cold War PDF Author: Simon Adams
Publisher: Creative Company
ISBN: 9781932889291
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
Looks at the history of the Cold War, examining events, people involved, and its eventual outcome.

The Cold War

The Cold War PDF Author: John Lewis Gaddis
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143038273
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
“Outstanding . . . The most accessible distillation of that conflict yet written.” —The Boston Globe “Energetically written and lucid, it makes an ideal introduction to the subject.” —The New York Times The “dean of Cold War historians” (The New York Times) now presents the definitive account of the global confrontation that dominated the last half of the twentieth century. Drawing on newly opened archives and the reminiscences of the major players, John Lewis Gaddis explains not just what happened but why—from the months in 1945 when the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. went from alliance to antagonism to the barely averted holocaust of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the maneuvers of Nixon and Mao, Reagan and Gorbachev. Brilliant, accessible, almost Shakespearean in its drama, The Cold War stands as a triumphant summation of the era that, more than any other, shaped our own. Gaddis is also the author of On Grand Strategy.

The Cold War

The Cold War PDF Author: Derek C. Maus
Publisher: Greenhaven Press, Incorporated
ISBN: 9780737714159
Category : Cold War
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
For nearly fifty years after the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an ideological standoff that at times seemed to threaten the very future of the planet. This volume not only looks at the political and military strategies used by both sides during this lengthy confrontation but also at the after-effects that these strategies had on the culture of the world as a whole.

The Cold War

The Cold War PDF Author: Valerie Bodden
Publisher: The Creative Company
ISBN: 9781583415467
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
Examines the twentieth-century standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union, discussing origins, nuclear strategies, and the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The Devil We Knew

The Devil We Knew PDF Author: H. W. Brands
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199879966
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
In the late 1950s, Washington was driven by its fear of communist subversion: it saw the hand of Kremlin behind developments at home and across the globe. The FBI was obsessed with the threat posed by American communist party--yet party membership had sunk so low, writes H.W. Brands, that it could have fit "inside a high-school gymnasium," and it was so heavily infiltrated that J. Edgar Hoover actually contemplated using his informers as a voting bloc to take over the party. Abroad, the preoccupation with communism drove the White House to help overthrow democratically elected governments in Guatemala and Iran, and replace them with dictatorships. But by then the Cold War had long since blinded Americans to the ironies of their battle against communism. In The Devil We Knew, Brands provides a witty, perceptive history of the American experience of the Cold War, from Truman's creation of the CIA to Ronald Reagan's creation of SDI. Brands has written a number of highly regarded works on America in the twentieth century; here he puts his experience to work in a volume of impeccable scholarship and exceptional verve. He turns a critical eye to the strategic conceptions (and misconceptions) that led a once-isolationist nation to pursue the war against communism to the most remote places on Earth. By the time Eisenhower left office, the United States was fighting communism by backing dictators from Iran to South Vietnam, from Latin America to the Middle East--while engaging in covert operations the world over. Brands offers no apologies for communist behavior, but he deftly illustrates the strained thinking that led Washington to commit gravely disproportionate resources (including tens of thousands of lives in Korea and Vietnam) to questionable causes. He keenly analyzes the changing policies of each administration, from Nixon's juggling (SALT talks with Moscow, new relations with Ccmmunist China, and bombing North Vietnam) to Carter's confusion to Reagan's laserrattling. Equally important is his incisive, often amusing look at how the anti-Soviet struggle was exploited by politicians, industrialists, and government agencies. He weaves in deft sketches of figures like Barry Goldwater and Henry Jackson (who won a Senate seat with the promise, "Many plants will be converting from peace time to all-out defense production"). We see John F. Kennedy deliver an eloquent speech in 1957 defending the rising forces of nationalism in Algeria and Vietnam; we also see him in the White House a few years later, ordering a massive increase in America's troop commitment to Saigon. The book ranges through the economics and psychology of the Cold War, demonstrating how the confrontation created its own constituencies in private industry and public life. In the end, Americans claimed victory in the Cold War, but Brands's account gives us reason to tone down the celebrations. "Most perversely," he writes, "the call to arms against communism caused American leaders to subvert the principles that constituted their country's best argument against communism." This far-reaching history makes clear that the Cold War was simultaneously far more, and far less, than we ever imagined at the time.