Barbara Zanchetta analyzes the evolution of American-Soviet relations during the 1970s, from the rise of détente during the Nixon administration to the policy's crisis and fall during the final years of the Carter presidency. This study traces lines of continuity among the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and assesses its effects on the ongoing redefinition of America's international role in the post-Vietnam era. Against the background of superpower cooperation in arms control, Dr. Zanchetta analyzes aspects of the global bipolar competition, including U.S.-China relations, the turmoil in Iran and Afghanistan, and the crises in Angola and the Horn of Africa. In doing so, she unveils both the successful transformation of American international power during the 1970s and its long-term problematic legacy.

"A detailed historical narrative of the U.S. energy crisis in the 1970s and how policymakers responded to the turmoil"--

Most of us think of the 1970s as an "in-between" decade, the uninspiring years that happened to fall between the excitement of the 1960s and the Reagan Revolution. A kitschy period summed up as the "Me Decade," it was the time of Watergate and the end of Vietnam, of malaise and gas lines, but of nothing revolutionary, nothing with long-lasting significance. In the first full history of the period, Bruce Schulman, a rising young cultural and political historian, sweeps away misconception after misconception about the 1970s. In a fast-paced, wide-ranging, and brilliant reexamination of the decade's politics, culture, and social and religious upheaval, he argues that the Seventies were one of the most important of the postwar twentieth-century decades. The Seventies witnessed a profound shift in the balance of power in American politics, economics, and culture, all driven by the vast growth of the Sunbelt. Country music, a southern silent majority, a boom in "enthusiastic" religion, and southern California New Age movements were just a few of the products of the new demographics. Others were even more profound: among them, public life as we knew it died a swift death. The Seventies offers a masterly reconstruction of high and low culture, of public events and private lives, of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Evel Knievel, est, Nixon, Carter, and Reagan. From The Godfather and Network to the Ramones and Jimmy Buffett; from Billie jean King and Bobby Riggs to Phyllis Schlafly and NOW; from Proposition 13 to the Energy Crisis; here are all the names, faces, and movements that once filled our airwaves, and now live again. The Seventies is powerfully argued, compulsively readable, and deeply provocative.

This title examines the large-scale structural upheaval of the 1970s by transcending the standard frameworks of national borders and superpower relations. It reveals an international system in the throes of enduring transformations.

"Barbara Zanchetta analyzes the evolution of American-Soviet relations during the 1970s, from the rise of detente during the Nixon administration to the policy's crisis and fall during the final years of the Carter presidency. This study traces lines of continuity among the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations and assesses its effects on the ongoing redefinition of America's international role in the post-Vietnam era. Against the background of superpower cooperation in arms control, Dr Zanchetta analyzes aspects of the global bipolar competition, including US-China relations, the turmoil in Iran and Afghanistan, and the crises in Angola and the Horn of Africa. In doing so, she unveils both the successful transformation of American international power during the 1970s and its long-term problematic legacy"--

Geopolitics and globalization collided in the 1970s, and their collision produced difficult challenges for the makers of American foreign policy. A Superpower Transformed explains how policymakers across three administrations worked to manage complex international changes in a tumultuous era, and it explores the legacies of their efforts to accommodate American power to new forces stirring in world affairs.

The American Era makes a provocative argument about America's world role. It sets out the case for a grand strategy that recognizes American preponderance as necessary and desirable for coping with the perils of the post-9/11 world. The book argues firstly that, Militant Islamic terrorism and weapons of mass destruction pose a threat which requires us to alter the way we think about the pre-emptive and preventive use of force. Secondly, the UN and other international bodies are incapable of acting on these urgent problems. Thirdly, in an international system with no true central authority other countries will inevitably look for leadership to the US. The book argues that if America does not respond actively to terrorist threats, no one else will take the initiative.

This book explores the forces that impelled China, the world’s largest socialist state, to make massive changes in its domestic and international stance during the long 1970s. Fourteen distinguished scholars investigate the special, perhaps crucial part that the territory of Hong Kong played in encouraging and midwifing China’s relationship with the non-Communist world. The Long 1970s were the years when China moved dramatically and decisively toward much closer relations with the non-Communist world. In the late 1970s, China also embarked on major economic reforms, designed to win it great power status by the early twenty-first centuries. The volume addresses the long-term implications of China’s choices for the outcome of the Cold War and in steering the global international outlook toward free-market capitalism. Decisions made in the 1970s are key to understanding the nature and policies of the Chinese state today and the worldview of current Chinese leaders.

A compelling framework for understanding the importance of the 1970s for America and the world The 1970s looks at an iconic decade when the cultural left and economic right came to the fore in American society and the world at large. While many have seen the 1970s as simply a period of failures epitomized by Watergate, inflation, the oil crisis, global unrest, and disillusionment with military efforts in Vietnam, Thomas Borstelmann creates a new framework for understanding the period and its legacy. He demonstrates how the 1970s increased social inclusiveness and, at the same time, encouraged commitments to the free market and wariness of government. As a result, American culture and much of the rest of the world became more—and less—equal. Borstelmann explores how the 1970s forged the contours of contemporary America. Military, political, and economic crises undercut citizens' confidence in government. Free market enthusiasm led to lower taxes, a volunteer army, individual 401(k) retirement plans, free agency in sports, deregulated airlines, and expansions in gambling and pornography. At the same time, the movement for civil rights grew, promoting changes for women, gays, immigrants, and the disabled. And developments were not limited to the United States. Many countries gave up colonial and racial hierarchies to develop a new formal commitment to human rights, while economic deregulation spread to other parts of the world, from Chile and the United Kingdom to China. Placing a tempestuous political culture within a global perspective, The 1970s shows that the decade wrought irrevocable transformations upon American society and the broader world that continue to resonate today.

[Henry Kissinger and American Power] effectively separates the man from the myths." —The Christian Science Monitor | Best books of August 2020 The definitive biography of Henry Kissinger—at least for those who neither revere nor revile him Over the past six decades, Henry Kissinger has been America’s most consistently praised—and reviled—public figure. He was hailed as a “miracle worker” for his peacemaking in the Middle East, pursuit of détente with the Soviet Union, negotiation of an end to the Vietnam War, and secret plan to open the United States to China. He was assailed from the left and from the right for his indifference to human rights, complicity in the pointless sacrifice of American and Vietnamese lives, and reliance on deception and intrigue. Was he a brilliant master strategist—“the 20th century’s greatest 19th century statesman”—or a cold-blooded monster who eroded America’s moral standing for the sake of self-promotion? In this masterfully researched biography, the renowned diplomatic historian Thomas Schwartz offers an authoritative, and fair-minded, answer to this question. While other biographers have engaged in hagiography or demonology, Schwartz takes a measured view of his subject. He recognizes Kissinger’s successes and acknowledges that Kissinger thought seriously and with great insight about the foreign policy issues of his time, while also recognizing his failures, his penchant for backbiting, and his reliance on ingratiating and fawning praise of the president as a source of power. Throughout, Schwartz stresses Kissinger’s artful invention of himself as a celebrity diplomat and his domination of the medium of television news. He also notes Kissinger’s sensitivity to domestic and partisan politics, complicating—and undermining—the image of the far-seeing statesman who stands above the squabbles of popular strife. Rounded and textured, and rich with new insights into key dilemmas of American power, Henry Kissinger and American Power stands as an essential guide to a man whose legacy is as complex as the last sixty years of US history itself.