Anticommunism in French Society and Politics, 1945-1953

Anticommunism in French Society and Politics, 1945-1953 PDF Author: Aaron Clift
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198886780
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Anticommunism in French Society and Politics, 1945-1953 evaluates the prevalence of anticommunism among the French population in 1945 to 1953, and examines its causes, character, and consequences through a series of case studies on different segments of French society. These include the scouting movement; family organisations; agricultural associations; middle-class groups; and trade unions and other working-class organisations. Aaron Clift contends that anticommunism was more widespread and deeply rooted than previously believed, and had a substantial impact on national politics and on these social groups and organisations. Furthermore, he argues that the study of anticommunism allows us a deeper understanding of the values they regarded as the most important to defend. Although anticommunism was a diverse phenomenon, this work identifies common discourses, including portrayals of communism as a threat to the nation; the colonial empire; the traditional family; private property; religion; the rural world; and Western civilisation. It also highlights common aims (such as the rehabilitation of wartime collaborators) and tactics (such as the invocation of apoliticism). While acknowledging the importance of the Cold War, it rejects the assumption that anticommunism was an American import or foreign to French society and demonstrates links between anticommunism and anti-Americanism. It concludes that anticommunism drew its strength from the connection or even conflation of communism with perceived negative social changes that were seen to threaten traditional French civilisation, interacting with the postwar international and domestic environment and the personal experiences of individual anticommunists.

Anticommunism in French Society and Politics, 1945-1953

Anticommunism in French Society and Politics, 1945-1953 PDF Author: Aaron Clift
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198886780
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book

Book Description
Anticommunism in French Society and Politics, 1945-1953 evaluates the prevalence of anticommunism among the French population in 1945 to 1953, and examines its causes, character, and consequences through a series of case studies on different segments of French society. These include the scouting movement; family organisations; agricultural associations; middle-class groups; and trade unions and other working-class organisations. Aaron Clift contends that anticommunism was more widespread and deeply rooted than previously believed, and had a substantial impact on national politics and on these social groups and organisations. Furthermore, he argues that the study of anticommunism allows us a deeper understanding of the values they regarded as the most important to defend. Although anticommunism was a diverse phenomenon, this work identifies common discourses, including portrayals of communism as a threat to the nation; the colonial empire; the traditional family; private property; religion; the rural world; and Western civilisation. It also highlights common aims (such as the rehabilitation of wartime collaborators) and tactics (such as the invocation of apoliticism). While acknowledging the importance of the Cold War, it rejects the assumption that anticommunism was an American import or foreign to French society and demonstrates links between anticommunism and anti-Americanism. It concludes that anticommunism drew its strength from the connection or even conflation of communism with perceived negative social changes that were seen to threaten traditional French civilisation, interacting with the postwar international and domestic environment and the personal experiences of individual anticommunists.

Reconstructing the Cold War

Reconstructing the Cold War PDF Author: Ted Hopf
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199858489
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
This title explores how the early years of the Cold War were marked by contradictions and conflict. It looks at how the turn from Stalin's discourse of danger to the discourse of difference under his successors explains the abrupt changes in relations with Eastern Europe, China, the decolonizing world, and the West.

Agents of Moscow

Agents of Moscow PDF Author: Martin Mevius
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199274611
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
After 1945, state patriotism of communist regimes in Eastern Europe was characterized by the widespread use of national symbols. This study examines the origins of this socialist patriotism and how it had become the self image of party and state by 1953.

The Foundations of Ostpolitik:The Making of the Moscow Treaty between West Germany and the USSR

The Foundations of Ostpolitik:The Making of the Moscow Treaty between West Germany and the USSR PDF Author: Julia von Dannenberg
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0199228191
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Based on recently released archival sources, this book is the first systematic analysis of the German-Soviet negotiations leading to the conclusion of the Moscow Treaty of August 1970. This treaty was the linchpin of the 'New Ostpolitik' launched by Chancellor Willy Brandt's government as a policy of reconciliation and an attempt to normalize relations with the countries of the Eastern bloc.Focusing on the decision-making processes, both within the German domestic political system as well as within the international context, this study offers a new interpretation of the shift from confrontational to détente politics at this time, arguing that the Moscow Treaty was the product of various interrelated domestic and external factors.As Dannenberg shows, the change of government to a Social-Liberal coalition was the first important precondition for Ostpolitik, while the speedy conclusion of the Moscow Treaty owed much to the high degree of secrecy and centralization that characterized Brandt's policy-making and that of his small coterie of advisors. However, Brandt's predominance in the decision-making process does not mean that he alone determined the direction of policy. His room for manoeuvre was, amongst other things,constrained by his coalition's narrow parliamentary majority as well as the Western Allies' special rights. On the other hand, German-Soviet trade expansion, public opinion, and the emerging international interest in détente in the mid-1960s were crucial factors favouring Ostpolitik.It was in this configuration of circumstances that Brandt placed himself at the forefront of the movement towards détente between East and West by introducing his bold diplomatic design - one that had the reunification of Germany as its ultimate goal.

The Human Factor

The Human Factor PDF Author: Archie Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190614919
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
In this penetrating analysis of the role of political leadership in the Cold War's ending, Archie Brown shows why the popular view that Western economic and military strength left the Soviet Union with no alternative but to admit defeat is wrong. To understand the significance of the parts played by Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in East-West relations in the second half of the 1980s, Brown addresses several specific questions: What were the values and assumptions of these leaders, and how did their perceptions evolve? What were the major influences on them? To what extent were they reflecting the views of their own political establishment or challenging them? How important for ending the East-West standoff were their interrelations? Would any of the realistically alternative leaders of their countries at that time have pursued approximately the same policies? The Cold War got colder in the early 1980s and the relationship between the two military superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, each of whom had the capacity to annihilate the other, was tense. By the end of the decade, East-West relations had been utterly transformed, with most of the dividing lines - including the division of Europe - removed. Engagement between Gorbachev and Reagan was a crucial part of that process of change. More surprising was Thatcher's role. Regarded by Reagan as his ideological and political soulmate, she formed also a strong and supportive relationship with Gorbachev (beginning three months before he came to power). Promoting Gorbachev in Washington as 'a man to do business with', she became, in the words of her foreign policy adviser Sir Percy Cradock, 'an agent of influence in both directions'.

Designing One Nation

Designing One Nation PDF Author: Katrin Schreiter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190877294
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations, thanks to a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The histories of East and West Germany traditionally emphasize the Cold War rivalries between the communist and capitalist nations. Yet, even as the countries diverged in their political directions, they had to create new ways of working together economically. In Designing One Nation, Katrin Schreiter examines the material culture of increasing economic contacts in divided Germany from the 1940s until the 1990s. Trade events, such as fairs and product shows, became one of the few venues for sustained links and knowledge between the two countries after the building of the Berlin Wall. Schreiter uses industrial design, epitomized by the furniture industry, to show how a network of politicians, entrepreneurs, and cultural brokers attempted to nationally re-inscribe their production cultures, define a postwar German identity, and regain economic stability and political influence in postwar Europe. What started as a competition for ideological superiority between East and West Germany quickly turned into a shared, politically legitimizing quest for an untainted post-fascist modernity. This work follows products from the drawing board into the homes of ordinary Germans to offer insights into how converging visions of German industrial modernity created shared expectations about economic progress and living standards. Schreiter reveals how intra-German and European trade policies drove the creation of products and generated a certain convergence of East and West German taste by the 1980s. Drawing on a wide range of sources from governments, furniture firms, industrial design councils, home lifestyle magazines, and design exhibitions, Designing One Nation argues that an economic culture linked the two Germanies even before reunification in 1990.

International Women's Year

International Women's Year PDF Author: Jocelyn Olcott
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190649984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Amid the geopolitical and social turmoil of the 1970s, the United Nations declared 1975 as International Women's Year. The capstone event, a two-week conference in Mexico City, was dubbed by organizers and journalists as "the greatest consciousness-raising event in history." The event drew an all-star cast of characters, including Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, Iranian Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, and US feminist Betty Friedan, as well as a motley array of policymakers, activists, and journalists. International Women's Year, the first book to examine this critical moment in feminist history, starts by exploring how organizers juggled geopolitical rivalries and material constraints amid global political and economic instability. The story then dives into the action in Mexico City, including conflicts over issues ranging from abortion to Zionism. The United Nations provided indispensable infrastructure and support for this encounter, even as it came under fire for its own discriminatory practices. While participants expressed dismay at levels of discord and conflict, Jocelyn Olcott explores how these combative, unanticipated encounters generated the most enduring legacies, including women's networks across the global south, greater attention to the intersectionalities of marginalization, and the arrival of women's micro-credit on the development scene. This watershed moment in transnational feminism, colorfully narrated in International Women's Year, launched a new generation of activist networks that spanned continents, ideologies, and generations.

The Double Game

The Double Game PDF Author: James Cameron
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190459921
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
How did the United States move from position of nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1960s to a period of arms control based on nuclear parity the doctrine of mutual assured destruction in 1972? Drawing on declassified records of conversations between three presidents and their most trusted advisors, this book provides a new and fascinating answer to this question. John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon struggled to reconcile their own personal convictions on the nuclear arms race with the very different views of the public and Congress. In doing so they engaged in a double game, hiding their true beliefs behind a facade of strategic language while grappling in private with the complex realities of the nuclear age. The book shows how Kennedy and Johnson consistently worried about the domestic political costs of their actions, pushing ahead with an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system for the United States for fear of the domestic political consequences of scrapping both the system and the doctrine of strategic superiority on which it was based. By contrast, the abrupt change in U.S. public and congressional opinion in 1969 forced Nixon to give up America's first ABM and the U. S. lead in offensive ballistic missiles through agreements with the Soviet Union, despite his conviction that the U.S. needed a nuclear edge over the USSR to maintain the security of the West. By placing this dynamic at the center of the story, the book provides a completely new overarching interpretation of this pivotal period in the development of U.S. nuclear policy.

Race, Rights and Reform

Race, Rights and Reform PDF Author: Sarah C. Dunstan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108808131
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Sarah C. Dunstan constructs a narrative of black struggles for rights and citizenship that spans most of the twentieth century, encompassing a wide range of people and movements from France and the United States, the French Caribbean and African colonies. She explores how black scholars and activists grappled with the connections between culture, race and citizenship and access to rights, mapping African American and Francophone black intellectual collaborations from the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to the March on Washington in 1963. Connecting the independent archives of black activist organizations within America and France with those of international institutions such as the League of Nations, the United Nations and the Comintern, Dunstan situates key black intellectuals in a transnational framework. She reveals how questions of race and nation intersected across national and imperial borders and illuminates the ways in which black intellectuals simultaneously constituted and reconfigured notions of Western civilization.

Reinventing French Aid

Reinventing French Aid PDF Author: Laure Humbert
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108831354
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
An original insight into how occupation officials and relief workers controlled and cared for Displaced Persons in the French zone.