Awards

• Nominated for Ellis W. Hawley Prize 2004
• Nominated for George Louis Beer Prize 2003
• Nominated for Lionel Gelber Prize 2004
• Nominated for Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize 2004

Overview

Traditionally seen as a master of domestic politics, Lyndon Johnson is frequently portrayed as inept in foreign relations, consumed by the war in Vietnam, and unable to provide vision or leadership for the Western alliance. In this persuasive revisionist history, Thomas Alan Schwartz takes issue with many of the popular and scholarly assumptions about the president seen as the classic ""ugly American."" In the first comprehensive study of Johnson's policy toward Europe--the most important theater of the Cold War--Schwartz shows a president who guided the United States with a policy that balanced the solidarity of the Western alliance with the need to stabilize the Cold War and reduce the nuclear danger. He faced the dilemmas of maintaining the cohesion of the alliance, especially with the French withdrawal from NATO, while trying to reduce tensions between eastern and western Europe, managing bitter conflicts over international monetary and trade policies, and prosecuting an escalating war in Southeast Asia. Impressively researched and engagingly written, Lyndon Johnson and Europe shows a fascinating new side to this giant of twentieth-century American history and demonstrates that Johnson's diplomacy toward Europe deserves recognition as one of the most important achievements of his presidency.

Full Product Details

9780674010741

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Reviews

Though entitled In the Shadow of Vietnam , this welcome and necessary contribution to the scholarship of US-European relations during the Johnson presidency demonstrates that there were many other issues beyond Vietnam that exercised the minds of LBJ and his advisers during the 1960s...Through his detailed exploration of the American response to the many problems thrown up in the maelstrom of the 1960s, Schwartz reveals a president who showed restraint and no little sensitivity and skill in his handling of the proud French leader, Charles de Gaulle, to prevent a serious rupture in the Atlantic alliance...This analysis of US-European relations also provides a fascinating portrait of the foreign policymaking process and the ways in which the United States was and is still able to achieve its objectives abroad. Through his examination of the papers of presidential advises and diplomats, Schwartz reveals the influences on the conduct of US foreign policy and the significance of channels and links with agencies and institutions of foreign governments. Such transnational links enabled American officials to secure influence in the decisions-making processes of other nations, thus achieving America's objectives abroad. This most cogently argued and insightful study of US-European relations in the 1960s is an invaluable source for policymakers and students of American foreign policy alike. -- Raj Roy History (10/01/2004)

Author Information

Thomas Alan Schwartz is Professor of History, Vanderbilt University.

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