front cover of Great Negotiations
Great Negotiations
Agreements that Changed the Modern World
Fredrik Stanton
Westholme Publishing, 2010

Lessons in Diplomacy from Colonial America to the Cold War

"In a time when negotiations, both great and small, continue to shape our world, this book provides an excellent opportunity to learn from the past and understand the present.”Kofi Annan, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and former Secretary General of the United Nations

“A thought-provoking, informative book, highly recommended for all readers interested in international affairs.”Library Journal

“For anyone with an interest in diplomacy and political history, Stanton's book is both entertaining and informative.” Foreign Policy Watch

“Every professional concerned with dispute resolution and every student of negotiation has much to learn from Fredrik Stanton's lively stories of eight history-shaping negotiations.”—Robert H. Mnookin, Chair Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School

“An excellent introduction into some of the great triumphs and failures of modern diplomacy.”Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“An interesting, informative study well worth reading and pondering.” —American Diplomacy

“Stanton deftly illustrates that the power of haggling can easily rival that of any army or warhead.”—Roll Call

“Exhaustive research and careful thought have enabled Stanton to employ an extraordinary writing talent to produce a contribution to history and a source of enjoyable reading.”—New York Law Journal

“Stanton brings back to life both famous and some long forgotten personalities in the history of major American, European, and Asian negotiations. He persuasively makes his case for the importance of negotiators and negotiations both when wars can be kept from beginning and when wars end. He weaves in deft descriptions of the personal strengths and foibles of negotiators and homes in on the ability of the best to improvise when maneuvering on unfamiliar terrain.” Ambassador Richard W. Murphy, Council on Foreign Relations

Words as much as weapons have shaped the course of history. Whether to avert, resolve, assist, or secure the outcome of a conflict, diplomacy in the modern age has had great triumphs and bitter failures, from the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which narrowly spared humanity from a nuclear Armageddon, to the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, which created problems that still confront us today. Drawing on primary sources, transcripts, and interviews, Great Negotiations: Agreements that Changed the Modern World tells the stories of eight key episodes in modern diplomacy. From Benjamin Franklin securing crucial French support for the American revolution to Reagan and Gorbachev laying the groundwork to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons, Fredrik Stanton explains what each party brought to the negotiating table, the stakes, the obstacles to success, and how they were overcome.

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front cover of New Territories, New Perspectives
New Territories, New Perspectives
The Religious Impact of the Louisiana Purchase
Edited & Intro by Richard J. Callahan, Jr.
University of Missouri Press, 2008

With the doubling of America’s territory that came with the Louisiana Purchase, American culture was remapped in the bargain. The region’s indigenous inhabitants had already been joined by Catholic missionaries, both French and Spanish, along with Africans brought as slaves to the Caribbean islands and North America; now all were met by a predominantly Protestant culture rushing westward.

New Territories, New Perspectives marks the first study to take the Louisiana Purchase as the focal point for considering the development of American religious history. The process of transforming the Louisiana Territory into U.S. territory meant shaping the space to conform to American cultural and religious identity, and this volume investigates continuities, disruptions, and changes relating to religion in this context.

The contributors ask what might happen to our understanding of religion in America if we look at it through the lens of this annexation. Initial chapters offer fresh perspectives on the new territory by those who settled it, primarily easterners, exploring such topics as the built environment of the region as seen in such settings as frontier camp meetings and communitarian societies, ideas of destiny amid the clash of cultural groups, and religiously significant aspects of African American life.

Subsequent essays take up the religious history of the region from the perspective of New Orleans and the Caribbean. They include an exploration of the roots of Pentecostalism in the mix of black and white cultures in the Mississippi Delta, the “vodou” link between New Orleans and Haiti, and the African-Creole performances of Mardi Gras Indians.

Together, these essays invite readers to consider intersecting histories that are too often neglected in our understanding of America’s religious development, particularly issues that stand apart from traditional histories of religion in the Midwest. By exploring the unexpected, they also promote different ways of thinking about American religious history as a whole.

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front cover of A Whole Country in Commotion
A Whole Country in Commotion
The Louisiana Purchase and the American Southwest
Patrick G. Williams
University of Arkansas Press, 2005
Bringing together the work of prominent scholars and rising stars in southern, western, and Indian history, A Whole Country in Commotion explores lesser-known aspects of one of the better-known episodes in U.S. history. While the purchase has been seen as a great boon for the United States, doubling the size of the new nation and securing American navigation on the Mississippi River, it also brought turmoil to many. Looking past the triumphal aspects of the purchase, this book examines the “negotiations among peoples, nations and empires that preceded and followed the actual transfer of territory.” Its nine essays highlight the “commotion” the purchase stirred up—among nations, among Louisiana residents and newcomers, even among those who remained east of the Mississippi. Many of these essays look at the portion of the Louisiana territory that would become Arkansas to illustrate the profound impact of the purchase on the diverse populations of the American Southwest. Others explore the woeful commotion brought to many thousands of lives as Jefferson’s “noble bargain” set the stage for the forced migration of native and African Americans from the east to the west of the Mississippi.
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