The Papers of Robert A. Taft: 1949-1953

The Papers of Robert A. Taft: 1949-1953 PDF Author: Robert Alphonso Taft
Publisher: Kent State University Press
ISBN: 9780873388511
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 560

Get Book Here

Book Description
The final volume of the Taft papers This fourth and final volume of a selected edition of the papers of Robert A. Taft documents Taft's post-World War II and congressional experiences until his death in 1953. Regardless of his conservative commitments, Taft saw the need for responsible reform. In the immediate postwar years, he recognized the need for federal aid to education, for social welfare legislation that assisted the poor, and for federal support for public housing. Out of political necessity, Taft became more partisan as the 1950 senatorial campaign approached, convinced he had to win reelection in Ohio by a large margin if he was to establish himself as a frontrunner in the primary campaign for the 1952 presidential election. Moderate Republicans spurned Taft and doubted that the serious, partisan senator could successfully head a national ticket. His support, nevertheless, was essential to the 1952 Eisenhower presidential campaign. Taft's service as Senate majority leader proved indispensable to President Eisenhower during the early months of his first term, helping the president navigate the byways of the nation's capital. Even after his diagnosis of cancer in April 1953, he continued to work at his senatorial duties until he died in July 1953. This volume completes the contribution that The Papers of Robert A. Taft provides to the study of United States political and diplomatic history, Ohio history, and conservative political theory.

The Papers of Robert A. Taft: 1949-1953

The Papers of Robert A. Taft: 1949-1953 PDF Author: Robert Alphonso Taft
Publisher: Kent State University Press
ISBN: 9780873388511
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 560

Get Book Here

Book Description
The final volume of the Taft papers This fourth and final volume of a selected edition of the papers of Robert A. Taft documents Taft's post-World War II and congressional experiences until his death in 1953. Regardless of his conservative commitments, Taft saw the need for responsible reform. In the immediate postwar years, he recognized the need for federal aid to education, for social welfare legislation that assisted the poor, and for federal support for public housing. Out of political necessity, Taft became more partisan as the 1950 senatorial campaign approached, convinced he had to win reelection in Ohio by a large margin if he was to establish himself as a frontrunner in the primary campaign for the 1952 presidential election. Moderate Republicans spurned Taft and doubted that the serious, partisan senator could successfully head a national ticket. His support, nevertheless, was essential to the 1952 Eisenhower presidential campaign. Taft's service as Senate majority leader proved indispensable to President Eisenhower during the early months of his first term, helping the president navigate the byways of the nation's capital. Even after his diagnosis of cancer in April 1953, he continued to work at his senatorial duties until he died in July 1953. This volume completes the contribution that The Papers of Robert A. Taft provides to the study of United States political and diplomatic history, Ohio history, and conservative political theory.

The Columnist

The Columnist PDF Author: Donald A. Ritchie
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190067586
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Get Book Here

Book Description
"In the Washington Merry-Go-Round, a nationally syndicated newspaper column that appeared in hundreds of papers from 1932 to 1969, as well as on weekly radio and television programs, the investigative journalist Drew Pearson revealed news that public officials tried to suppress. He disclosed policy disputes and political spats, exposed corruption, attacked bigotry, and promoted social justice. He pumped up some political careers and destroyed others. Presidents, prime ministers, and members of Congress repeatedly called him a liar, and he was sued for libel more often than any other journalist, but he won most of his cases by proving the accuracy of his charges. Pearson dismissed most official news as propaganda and devoted his column to reporting what officials were doing behind closed doors. He broke secrets-even in wartime-and revealed classified information. Fellow journalists credited him with knowing more dirt about more people in Washington than even the FBI and compared his efforts to Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers or Edward Snowden with WikiLeaks, except that he did it daily. The Columnist examines how Pearson managed to uncover secrets so successfully and why government efforts to find his sources proved so unsuccessful. Drawing on a half century of archival evidence it assesses his contributions as a muckraker by verifying or refuting both his accusations and his accusers"--

First to the Party

First to the Party PDF Author: Christopher Baylor
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812249631
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book Here

Book Description
What determines the interests, ideologies, and alliances that make up political parties? In its entire history, the United States has had only a handful of party transformations. First to the Party concludes that groups like unions and churches, not voters or politicians, are the most consistent influences on party transformation.

The General and the Politician

The General and the Politician PDF Author: John W. Malsberger
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442232366
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Get Book Here

Book Description
As historian and author John W. Malsberger writes in The General and the Politician: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and American Politics, no two political figures could have taken more different routes to the Presidency than did America’s 34th and 37th Commanders in Chief. Thrown together largely for political convenience by a Republican party struggling to reinvent itself through years of post-Depression, Democratic dominance, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon came to embody two radically different styles of leadership, simultaneously defining – for the American electorate – where American politics had been, and where they were headed. While debate has raged amongst historians over the level of hostility the two men were rumored to harbor for one another, there is – as Malsberger points out – a more accurate reading of their relationship available to us if we examine all the facts. Taken in a broader context, their relationship was much less a momentary collision of dissident styles and values than a genuine watershed moment in American politics, from which our current political spectrum and electorate can trace their roots. The General and the Politician thoroughly and accessibly details the intersection of two of 20th-Century America’s most powerful figures, and examines their tenuous but transformative relationship to reveal the origins of political discussions and debates that we’re still having today.

The Cold War in the 1950s

The Cold War in the 1950s PDF Author: Nicolas Lewkowicz
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1839985542
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Get Book Here

Book Description
The book claims that the United States and the Soviet Union attained the mastery of the international order by projecting universalist values that responded to the particularist markers of the domestic order that was generated in the 1950s. The geopolitical orientation adopted by the superpowers in the 1950s was shaped by the way in which their societies developed politically, socially and economically in the 1950s. The main argument of this book is that the quest for the mastery of the international order that informed superpower relations in the 1950s was guided by the need to respond to the local circumstances that emerged in the United States and the Soviet Union. The particularist markers that arose in the 1950s led to the establishment of a geopolitical project underpinned by certain universalist values that could be applied in order to build the superpowers’ sphere of influence.

The Polarizers

The Polarizers PDF Author: Sam Rosenfeld
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022640739X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book Here

Book Description
“Rosenfeld’s insightful study of the development of political parties since World War II is highly instructive for our current moment.” —Kirkus Reviews Even in this most partisan and dysfunctional of eras, we can all agree on one thing: Washington is broken. Politicians take increasingly inflexible and extreme positions, leading to gridlock, partisan warfare, and the sense that our seats of government are nothing but cesspools of hypocrisy, childishness, and waste. The shocking reality, though, is that modern polarization was a deliberate project carried out by Democratic and Republican activists. In The Polarizers, Sam Rosenfeld details why bipartisanship was seen as a problem in the postwar period and how polarization was then cast as the solution. Republicans and Democrats feared that they were becoming too similar, and that a mushy consensus imperiled their agendas and even American democracy itself. Thus began a deliberate move to match ideology with party label—with the toxic results we now endure. Rosenfeld reveals the specific politicians, intellectuals, and operatives who worked together to heighten partisan discord, showing that our system today is not (solely) a product of gradual structural shifts but of deliberate actions motivated by specific agendas. Rosenfeld reveals that the story of Washington’s transformation is both significantly institutional and driven by grassroots influences on both the left and the right. The Polarizers brilliantly challenges and overturns our conventional narrative about partisanship, but perhaps most importantly, it points us toward a new consensus: if we deliberately created today’s dysfunctional environment, we can deliberately change it. “A timely and significant contribution to the literature on political sorting and polarization . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice

Republican, First, Last, and Always

Republican, First, Last, and Always PDF Author: Suzanne Bowers
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443820032
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
Republican, First, Last, and Always: A Biography of B. Carroll Reece examines the political culture that created an intense fervor of anti-communism in America. From 1920 to 1961, B. Carroll Reece served a then unprecedented thirty-five years in the United States House of Representatives. A close friend of Robert Taft, Reece served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1946–1948 and used his position as chairman to push anti-communism to the forefront of the Republican Party’s national agenda and to help Taft try to win the presidency. His background in finance and economics led him to believe that capitalism remained America’s strongest defense against communism. He worked to eradicate any threat to the capitalist system—from trying to block government development of the Muscle Shoals Dam projects in Alabama in the 1920s to forming a congressional committee that attacked foundations created by the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie families in the 1950s. Reece’s downfall and death represented the demise of Old Guard conservatives within the Republican Party as new leaders and new issues became the center of Republican politics, and his investigation contributed to the animosity towards foundations and large concentrations of wealth that continues today.

A Progressive History of American Democracy Since 1945

A Progressive History of American Democracy Since 1945 PDF Author: Chris J. Magoc
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000513734
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 379

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Progressive History of American Democracy Since 1945: American Dreams, Hard Realities offers a social, political, and cultural history of the United States since World War II. Unpacking a period of profound transformation unprecedented in the national experience, this book takes a synthetic approach to the history of the 1940s to the present day. It examines how Americans descended from a mid-century apogee of boundless expectations to the unsettling premise that our contemporary historical moment is fraught with a sense of crisis and national failure. The book’s narrative explores the question of decline and more importantly, how the history of this transformation can point the way toward a recovery of shared national values. Chris J. Magoc also gives extensive treatments to the following: Grassroots movements that have expanded the meaning of American democracy, from the 1950s human rights struggle in the South to contemporary movements to confront systemic racism and the existential crisis of climate change. The resilience of American democracy in the face of antidemocratic forces. The impacts of a decades-long economic transformation. The consequences of America’s expanding global military footprint and national security state. Fracturing of a nation once held together by a post-war liberal consensus and broadly shared societal goals to an America facing an attack from within on empirical truth and democracy itself. This book will be of interest to students of modern U.S. history, social history, and American Studies, and general readers interested in recent U.S. history.

Narrative and the Making of US National Security

Narrative and the Making of US National Security PDF Author: Ronald R. Krebs
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316368890
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 413

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dominant narratives - from the Cold War consensus to the War on Terror - have often served as the foundation for debates over national security. Weaving current challenges, past failures and triumphs, and potential futures into a coherent tale, with well-defined characters and plot lines, these narratives impart meaning to global events, define the boundaries of legitimate politics, and thereby shape national security policy. However, we know little about why or how such narratives rise and fall. Drawing on insights from diverse fields, Narrative and the Making of US National Security offers novel arguments about where these dominant narratives come from, how they become dominant, and when they collapse. It evaluates these arguments carefully against evidence drawn from US debates over national security from the 1930s to the 2000s, and shows how these narrative dynamics have shaped the policies pursued by the United States.

American Character

American Character PDF Author: Colin Woodard
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143110004
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
The author of American Nations examines the history of and solutions to the key American question: how best to reconcile individual liberty with the maintenance of a free society The struggle between individual rights and the good of the community as a whole has been the basis of nearly every major disagreement in our history, from the debates at the Constitutional Convention and in the run up to the Civil War to the fights surrounding the agendas of the Federalists, the Progressives, the New Dealers, the civil rights movement, and the Tea Party. In American Character, Colin Woodard traces these two key strands in American politics through the four centuries of the nation’s existence, from the first colonies through the Gilded Age, Great Depression and the present day, and he explores how different regions of the country have successfully or disastrously accommodated them. The independent streak found its most pernicious form in the antebellum South but was balanced in the Gilded Age by communitarian reform efforts; the New Deal was an example of a successful coalition between communitarian-minded Eastern elites and Southerners. Woodard argues that maintaining a liberal democracy, a society where mass human freedom is possible, requires finding a balance between protecting individual liberty and nurturing a free society. Going to either libertarian or collectivist extremes results in tyranny. But where does the “sweet spot” lie in the United States, a federation of disparate regional cultures that have always strongly disagreed on these issues? Woodard leads readers on a riveting and revealing journey through four centuries of struggle, experimentation, successes and failures to provide an answer. His historically informed and pragmatic suggestions on how to achieve this balance and break the nation’s political deadlock will be of interest to anyone who cares about the current American predicament—political, ideological, and sociological.