The Fifty Year Wound: The True Price of America's Cold War Victory - Hardcover

Leebaert, Derek

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316518476 ISBN 13: 9780316518475

Publisher: Little, Brown, 2002

Synopsis

Drawn from literature, strategy, biography, and economics, a meticulously researched history of the Cold War, complete with valuable lessons for today, examines the social, moral, financial, technological, and political sacrifices that America made to win the Cold War--sacrifices that still impact our nation in this day and age. 20,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

America won the cold war, what Derek Leebaert calls a "muffled world war" in The Fifty-Year Wound, but the cost of victory--psychically, morally, and financially--was beyond frightful. The Soviet Union collapsed peacefully; civilization survived "more or less" intact; the world was "liberalized," and the cold war period was the longest "great power" peace since Rome fell. But a half-century "pattern of alarm" and the "industry of national security" curbed freedoms, diverted talent into "fundamentally unproductive" fields, postponed research, "trammeled" investment, and caused a national "waste of spirit." As well, Leebaert suggests the Cuban missiles were primarily psychological threats; American involvement in Vietnam led to OPEC's economic muscle; Kennedy was perhaps the most hawkish of post-WWII presidents, and that the events of September 11 were a direct cold war legacy. This massive, comprehensive, and stern but guardedly optimistic overview will reward the determined reader with its insights and hundreds of telling, sometimes shocking, details. --H. O'Billovitch

About the Author:

Derek Leebaert teaches government at Georgetown University, where he previously taught in the School of Business' MBA program. He has been a Smithsonian Fellow and a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University's Center for Science and International Affairs. He is a board member of the Army Historical Foundation and consults frequently for the U.S. government. He has also worked in the software industry for the last fifteen years and is co-author of the MIT Press trilogy on the recent evolution of information technologies. He lives in Washington D.C.

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0316518476
• ISBN 13: 9780316518475
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 704