BiblioVault - Books about U . S Foreign Policy

African Americans in U.S. Foreign Policy

From the Era of Frederick Douglass to the Age of Obama

Edited by Linda Heywood, Allison Blakely, Charles Stith, and Joshua C. Yesnowitz

University of Illinois Press, 2015

Bookended by remarks from African American diplomats Walter C. Carrington and Charles Stith, the essays in this volume use close readings of speeches, letters, historical archives, diaries, memoirs of policymakers, and newly available FBI files to confront much-neglected questions related to race and foreign relations in the United States. Why, for instance, did African Americans profess loyalty and support for the diplomatic initiatives of a nation that undermined their social, political, and economic well-being through racist policies and cultural practices? Other contributions explore African Americans' history in the diplomatic and consular services and the influential roles of cultural ambassadors like Joe Louis and Louis Armstrong. The volume concludes with an analysis of the effects on race and foreign policy in the administration of Barack Obama.

Groundbreaking and critical, African Americans in U.S. Foreign Policy expands on the scope and themes of recent collections to offer the most up-to-date scholarship to students in a range of disciplines, including U.S. and African American history, Africana studies, political science, and American studies.

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Afterimages

Photography and U.S. Foreign Policy

Liam Kennedy

University of Chicago Press, 2016

In 2005, photographer Chris Hondros captured a striking image of a young Iraqi girl in the aftermath of the killing of her parents by American soldiers. The shot stunned the world and has since become iconic—comparable to the infamous photo by Nick Ut of a Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack. Both images serve as microcosms for their respective conflicts. Afterimages looks at the work of war photographers like Hondros and Ut to understand how photojournalism interacts with the American worldview.

Liam Kennedy here maps the evolving relations between the American way of war and photographic coverage of it. Organized in its first section around key US military actions over the last fifty years, the book then moves on to examine how photographers engaged with these conflicts on wider ethical and political grounds, and finally on to the genre of photojournalism itself. Illustrated throughout with examples of the photographs being considered, Afterimages argues that photographs are important means for critical reflection on war, violence, and human rights. It goes on to analyze the high ethical, sociopolitical, and legalistic value we place on the still image’s ability to bear witness and stimulate action.

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Cold War Games

Propaganda, the Olympics, and U.S. Foreign Policy

Toby C Rider

University of Illinois Press, 2016

It is the early Cold War. The Soviet Union appears to be in irresistible ascendance and moves to exploit the Olympic Games as a vehicle for promoting international communism. In response, the United States conceives a subtle, far-reaching psychological warfare campaign to blunt the Soviet advance.

Drawing on newly declassified materials and archives, Toby C. Rider chronicles how the U.S. government used the Olympics to promote democracy and its own policy aims during the tense early phase of the Cold War. Rider shows how the government, though constrained by traditions against interference in the Games, eluded detection by cooperating with private groups, including secretly funded émigré organizations bent on liberating their home countries from Soviet control. At the same time, the United States utilized Olympic host cities as launching pads for hyping the American economic and political system. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the government attempted clandestine manipulation of the International Olympic Committee. Rider also details the campaigns that sent propaganda materials around the globe as the United States mobilized culture in general, and sports in particular, to fight the communist threat.

Deeply researched and boldly argued, Cold War Games recovers an essential chapter in Olympic and postwar history.

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Projections of Power

Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy

Robert M. Entman

University of Chicago Press, 2003

To succeed in foreign policy, U.S. presidents have to sell their versions or framings of political events to the news media and to the public. But since the end of the Cold War, journalists have increasingly resisted presidential views, even offering their own spin on events. What, then, determines whether the media will accept or reject the White House perspective? And what consequences does this new media environment have for policymaking and public opinion?

To answer these questions, Robert M. Entman develops a powerful new model of how media framing works—a model that allows him to explain why the media cheered American victories over small-time dictators in Grenada and Panama but barely noticed the success of far more difficult missions in Haiti and Kosovo. Discussing the practical implications of his model, Entman also suggests ways to more effectively encourage the exchange of ideas between the government and the media and between the media and the public. His book will be an essential guide for political scientists, students of the media, and anyone interested in the increasingly influential role of the media in foreign policy.

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Taken by Storm

The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War

Edited by W. Lance Bennett and David L. Paletz

University of Chicago Press, 1994

In the most comprehensive study of the media and foreign policy, twenty distinguished scholars and analysts explain the role played by the mass media and public opinion in the development of United States foreign policy in the Gulf War.

Tracing the flow of news, public opinion, and policy decisions from Sadam Hussein's rise to power in 1979, to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, through the outbreak and conclusion of the war, the contributors look at how the media have become key players in the foreign policy process. They examine the pre-war media debate, news coverage during and after the war, how the news-gathering process shaped the content of the coverage, and the media's effect on public opinion and decision makers. We see what goes on behind the scenes in the high tech world of political communication, and are confronted by troubling questions about the ways the government managed coverage of the war and captured journalists at their own news game.

Taken by Storm also examines more general patterns in post-Cold war journalism and foreign policy, particularly how contemporary journalistic practices determine whose voices and what views are heard in foreign policy coverage. At stake are the reactions of a vast media audience and the decision of government officials who see both the press and the public and key elements of the policy game.

The first book to fully integrate our understanding of the news business, public opinion, and government action, Taken by Storm transcends the limits of the Gulf War to illuminate the complex relationship between the media, the public, and U.S. foreign policy in the late twentieth century.

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U.S. Foreign Policy and Peru

By Daniel A. Sharp

University of Texas Press, 1972

This book presents the first authoritative and comprehensive account of the development of the Peruvian revolution of 1968. The study resulted from a team experiment in applied political science, economics, and sociology that maintained effective communications between Peru and the United States at many levels during the difficult years following the revolution. Each chapter is the result of continuous interaction between a leading authority and the major sectors of both societies. History is here presented in its diplomatic, social, economic, and cultural context.

The Peruvian and U.S. governments helped to define the subjects of greatest interest to their respective countries, and a systematic effort was made to find the leading authorities on each issue. Since one purpose of this volume is to affect policy by identifying new alternative policies, the papers included here were prepared specifically to be of value to policy makers.

This book was produced by a citizens’ constituency on U.S. foreign policy under the auspices of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, and the Johnson Foundation.

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U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East

The Role of Lobbies and Special Interest Groups

Janice J. Terry

Pluto Press, 2005

Millions of dollars are spent every year by companies and special interest groups attempting to influence government policy. They work behind the scenes, lobbying politicians to represent their interests. From tobacco companies, to energy companies, from anti-abortion campaigners to civil rights campaigners, the list is vast. And nowhere is their influence more keenly felt than on the issue of the Middle East.

Israel is America's key ally in the Middle East, and helps maintain U.S. dominance in the region. This book shows how pro-Israeli lobbyists and domestic interest groups have been hugely successful in creating government and financial support for Israel. By contrast, Arab-American groups and Arab governments have had less success putting forward their agencies.

Janice J. Terry shows how special interest groups work, and why certain lobbying techniques are more effective than others. She sets this within the wider cultural context, showing how the U.S. media -- and the general public -- view the Middle East.

To explain how lobbies work, Terry draws on case studies including the Sinai accords and Camp David under Presidents Ford and Carter, the Conflict between Green and Turkish lobbies over Cyprus, and the major campaign against the Arab boycott.

Making use of primary sources, and unpublished material from various presidential libraries, this is a fascinating exposé of the role that lobby groups really play in determining U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. It will be of interest to students of American politics and Middle East studies.

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