At the Water's Edge: American Politics and the Vietnam War / Edition 1

At the Water's Edge: American Politics and the Vietnam War / Edition 1

by Harley Granville Granville Barker
ISBN-10:
1566636477
ISBN-13:
9781566636476
Pub. Date:
09/25/2006
Publisher:
Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
ISBN-10:
1566636477
ISBN-13:
9781566636476
Pub. Date:
09/25/2006
Publisher:
Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
At the Water's Edge: American Politics and the Vietnam War / Edition 1

At the Water's Edge: American Politics and the Vietnam War / Edition 1

by Harley Granville Granville Barker
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Overview

More than most wars in American history, the long and contentious Vietnam War had a profound effect on the home front, during the war and especially after. In At the Water's Edge, Melvin Small delivers the first study of the war's domestic politics. Most of the military and diplomatic decisions made by Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, Mr. Small shows, were heavily influenced by election cycles, relations with Congress, the state of the economy, and the polls. Although all three presidents and their advisers claimed that these decisions were taken exclusively for national security concerns, much evidence suggests otherwise. In turn, the war had a transforming impact on American society. Popular perceptions of the "war at home" produced a dramatic and longstanding realignment in political allegiances, an assault on the media that still colors political debate today, and an economic crisis that weakened the nation for a decade after the last U.S. troops left Vietnam. Domestic conflict over the war led to the abolition of the draft, the curtailment of the intelligence agencies' unconstitutional practices, formal congressional restraints upon the imperial presidency, and epochal Supreme Court rulings that preserved First Amendment rights. The war ultimately destroyed the presidency of Lyndon Johnson and indirectly forced the resignation of Richard Nixon. Those presidents who followed through the remainder of the twentieth century constructed their foreign policies mindful that they would not survive politically if they were to lead the nation into another protracted limited war in the Third World.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781566636476
Publisher: Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Publication date: 09/25/2006
Series: American Ways Series
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 256
Product dimensions: 7.36(w) x 8.24(h) x 0.77(d)

About the Author

Melvin Small is Distinguished Professor of History at Wayne State University and the author of Antiwarriors, The Presidency of Richard Nixon, Democracy and Diplomacy, Covering Dissent, and other books on American history. Born in New York City, he studied at Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan. He lives in Royal Oak, Michigan.

What People are Saying About This

Walter LeFeber

Melvin Small is one of our best historians of the Vietnam War...Here he ...give[s] us a superb account....

Robert A. Divine

...Concise, balanced account....The result is a welcome addition to the Vietnam literature.
University of Texas at Austin

David L. Anderson

...Melvin Small explains masterfully why America's longest war has had such a seminal and enduring internal impact on the United States.
Dean, California State University Monterey Bay

Jeffrey Kimball

A masterful survey of the interrelationships between U.S. domestic politics and the Vietnam War by the most knowledgeable historian on the subject.
author of To Reason Why; Nixon's Vietnam War; and The Vietnam War Files

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