FDR & STALLIN: A NOT SO GRAND ALLIANCE, 1943-1945

Perlmutter, Amos

ISBN 10: 0826209106 / ISBN 13: 9780826209108

Published by University of Missouri, 1993

About this Item

1993 Perlmutter, Amos FDR & STALLIN: A NOT SO GRAND ALLIANCE, 1943-1945 Columbia: University of Missouri, c1993 first printing 331pp, index, illus b/w 8vo as new hardcover in d/j. Seller Inventory # 81070

Bibliographic Details

Title: FDR & STALLIN: A NOT SO GRAND ALLIANCE, 1943...

Publisher: University of Missouri

Publication Date: 1993

Binding: Hardcover

Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

Perlmutter's hard-hitting, revisionist history of Roosevelt's foreign policy explores FDR's not-so-grand alliance with the ruthless Soviet leader. As the first Western scholar granted access to key foreign ministry documents recently declassified in the former Soviet Union, Perlmutter provides a provocative portrait of a popular leader whose failure to comprehend Stalin's long-range goals had devastating results for the postwar world.

From the Back Cover:

Acknowledged as the leader of the free world after World War Il, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is one of the most significant and compelling figures of the twentieth century. Yet no previous book has dealt critically with his foreign policy during the crucial years between 1943 and 1945. In this penetrating study, Amos Perlmutter exposes the myth of New Deal war diplomacy, showing the devastating results of FDR's not-so-grand alliance with Joseph Stalin, one of the most ruthless political leaders of the modern world. Perlmutter assesses FDR's war strategy and his postwar vision, as well as his diplomatic style in dealing with both Stalin and Churchill. FDR failed to take political advantage of the enormous U.S. economic, military, and atomic superiority. In three key areas of the Grand Alliance dispute - the Second Front, Poland, and the division of Germany - FDR clearly colluded with Stalin against the larger vision of Churchill. By failing to use the Lend-Lease program as a bargaining chip, FDR "surrendered" Eastern Europe to Stalin even before Stalin had begun his long-planned Soviet expansion into the East. A passionate, optimistic, and popular leader, FDR nevertheless failed to see the long-range goals of Stalin. He maintained an idealistic vision of a postwar world presided over by a partnership of two emerging powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Perlmutter shows how FDR's blind pursuit of that vision and the concessions he made to realize it resulted not in partnership, but in the legacy of the Cold War. Based on extensive reevaluation of domestic sources and his study of key Foreign Ministry documents in the former Soviet Union, Perlmutter sheds new light on therelationship of FDR and Stalin. Several fascinating appendixes reproduce material from the recently declassified Soviet archives relating to this crucial period in American foreign policy. FDR & Stalin is a provocative, much-needed reassessment of Roosevelt's role in the re-shaping of international relations after World War II.