American Tragedy

Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10031379
AutoresSayuri Shimizu (0000-0003-0661-1171, Michigan State University, autor de correspondencia), David Kaiser (0000-0002-5054-6744), Robert S Mcnamara (0009-0002-7143-2225), James G Blight, Robert K Brigham, Thomas J Biersteker (0000-0001-8176-0914), Herbert Y Schandler
Año2001
Volumen88
Número3
Páginas1163-1163
Fecha de publicación2001-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of American History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2700540
OpenAlexW2278310444
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10

It sounds like a cliché, but it is true: democracy, to fulfill its promise as the best of human traditions, requires enlightened leadership. According to David Kaiser, the generation of Americans who came of age in the turbulent 1930s and 1940s felt blessed in that regard. By shepherding the battered national economy out of the Great Depression and leading the Grand Alliance to resounding victory over fascism, the government in Washington had proven itself capable of solving the world's most daunting problems and so demonstrated the supremacy of American institutions. Almost anything appeared manag eable, if not achievable. Members of the “GI generation,” an analytical category Kaiser effectively, if inconsistently, employs in his recent study of the Vietnam War, had reason to believe in their government. They had learned that their leaders could parlay benevolent intentions into beneficial action. Their institutions, they thought, were effective mechanisms for recruiting men, if not women, capable of making right and just decisions. How, then, could those leaders, in the name of freedom and democracy, have made the grossly wrong choices that launched the nation into the tragic war in Vietnam? American Tragedy and Argument without End are important additions to the evergrowing literature seeking to provide clues toward an answer to this haunting question

Alliance · Argument (complex analysis · Democracy · Government (linguistics · Great Depression · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Tragedy (event · Victory · Vietnam War · American Political and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies