Robert A. Divine
Autore di America, past and present
Sull'Autore
Robert A. Divine is the George W. Littlefield Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught for more than forty years.
Opere di Robert A. Divine
The illusion of neutrality 4 copie
America Past and Present, Brief Edition, Volume I (7th Edition) (MyHistoryLab Series) (2006) 2 copie
The American Story to 1877 1 copia
The Reluctant Beligerent 1 copia
American Story, Volume 2-Since 1865 (3rd, 07) by Divine, Robert A - Breen, T H H - Fredrickson, George M - [Paperback… (2006) 1 copia
American Story, The, Volume 2, Plus NEW MyHistoryLab with Pearson eText -- Access Card Package (5th Edition) (2014) 1 copia
The Illusion of Neutrality Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Struggle Over the Arms Embargo (pbk) (1962) 1 copia
America Past and Present, Brief Edition, Single Volume Edition, Primary Source Edition (6th Edition) (2005) 1 copia
Opere correlate
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Altri nomi
- Divine, Robert Alexander (birth name)
- Data di nascita
- 1929-05-10
- Sesso
- male
- Istruzione
- Yale University (PhD|History|1954)
- Attività lavorative
- historian
university professor emeritus - Organizzazioni
- University of Texas, Austin
Utenti
Recensioni
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 64
- Opere correlate
- 1
- Utenti
- 850
- Popolarità
- #30,105
- Voto
- 3.4
- Recensioni
- 5
- ISBN
- 167
- Lingue
- 2
The success with which Divine credits Eisenhower in U.S. relations with Asia, the Middle East, and the Soviet Union bears testimony to the fact that revisionism is not inherently critical of its subject matter. In fact, Divine goes beyond simply praising Eisenhower's foreign policy and adopts the "Verstehend" approach of German historicism in that he seems to share many of the same Cold War assumptions which delimited the range and substance of debates in the 1950s over U.S.-Soviet policy. The problem with this book is that Divine's Soviets are the same evil stick figures as they were for policy-makers in the 1950s.
The Soviets may well have been evil, but Divine spends no time demonstrating this. Leaving out an analysis of the Soviet position is a major weakness in his approach since the Soviets serve as foils against which the American hero Eisenhower is developed. Chiding Ike mildly for fuzzy-headed idealism, for instance, he notes sadly that:
"Ike's pursuit of peace was the dominant feature of his presidency, and the failure to secure it his greatest disappointment. This quest was flawed by Eisenhower's uncritical assumption that the Cold War was the result of Russian fear and hostility. He believed that all he had to do was to convince the men in the Kremlin that the United states was not out to encircle or destroy the Soviet Union. Hoping to gain their trust [which for Divine was neither wise, nor perhaps even possible], he believed he could reverse their belligerence and persuade them to accept western solutions •••" (p. 105)
Divine merely assumes that his reader believes along with him that the Soviets were cynics, the Americans sincere idealists.
There are many other examples in the book of this Manichean dualism. Examining his use of language it becomes apparent that for Divine, as for American foreign policy makers in the 1950s, the Soviets were "Russians" who were devotees of "Communism" with a big "C." If he did not want to give the impression that he believes the Soviets to have been inherently aggressive, expansionist, and untrustworthy he should not have plucked this terminology from the early Cold War years. Yet there is plenty of further evidence that this is exactly the impression he wished to convey.… (altro)