This book examines the historical, diplomatic, economic, and strategic aspects of the European Recovery Program (ERP) - popularly known as the Marshall Plan.

This book examines the historical, diplomatic, economic, and strategic aspects of the European Recovery Program (ERP) -- popularly known as the Marshall Plan -- which brought Europe out of the chaos, hunger, poverty, desperation, and ashes of World War II. In it, authors from a variety of countries who are scholars, policy makers, and business leaders, address applications of the Marshall Plan's lessons learned to the 21st century for capacity building, human and sustainable development, and the role of public, private partnerships in emerging market economies and democratic societies.--Publisher's description.

When a country emerges from violent conflict, the management of the environment and natural resources has important implications for short-term peacebuilding and long-term stability, particularly if natural resources were a factor in the conflict, play a major role in the national economy, or broadly support livelihoods. Only recently, however, have the assessment, harnessing, and restoration of the natural resource base become essential components of postconflict peacebuilding. This book, by thirty-five authors, examines the experiences of more than twenty countries and territories in assessing post-conflict environmental damage and natural resource degradation and their implications for human health, livelihoods, and security. The book also illustrates how an understanding of both the risks and opportunities associated with natural resources can help decision makers manage natural resources in ways that create jobs, sustain livelihoods, and contribute to economic recovery and reconciliation, without creating new grievances or significant environmental degradation. Finally, the book offers lessons from the remediation of environmental hot spots, restoration of damaged ecosystems, and reconstruction of the environmental services and infrastructure necessary for a sustainable peace. Assessing and Restoring Natural Resources in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding is part of a global initiative to identify and analyze lessons in post-conflict peacebuilding and natural resource management. The project has generated six books of case studies and analyses, with contributions by practitioners, policy makers, and researchers. Other books address highvalue resources, land, water, livelihoods, and governance.

The US government launched the European Recovery Programme, otherwise known as the 'Marshall Plan', in order to save war-torn Europe from collapse in 1948. Yet while much is known about the economic side of the Marshall Plan, the extensive film campaign that accompanied it has been largely overlooked until now. The American Marshall Plan Film Campaign and the Europeans is the first book to explore the use of the Marshall Plan films and, importantly, their distribution and reception across Europe. The study examines every available film – the 170 that remain from the 200 estimated to have been made – and looks at how they were designed to instil hope, argue the case for economic restructuring and persuade the Europeans of the superiority of the liberal-capitalist system. The book goes on to reason that the films served as a powerful weapon in the cultural Cold War, but that the European audiences were by no means passive victims of the US propaganda effort. Maria Fritsche discusses the Marshall Plan films in the context of countries across Western, Northern and Southern Europe, covering the majority of the 17 European countries that participated in the Plan in the process. The book incorporates 70 images and utilises a vast number of archival sources to explore the strategies the US adopted to sway the minds of the Europeans, the problems they encountered in the process and, not least, the varied responses of the European audiences. It is a vital study for any scholar or student keen to know more about postwar recovery in Europe, the legacy of the Second World War or America's relationship with Europe in the 20th century.

The growth of Soviet power prompted concern from the United States. President Truman asserted that the United States needed to prevent Communism from becoming stronger. His warning to Congress became known as the Truman Doctrine. When General George Marshall visited Europe, he feared that Europe's weak economy would encourage the growth of Communism. He established an initiative to provide economic support to rebuild Europe, which had been devastated by the war. This initiative was nicknamed the Marshall Plan. Congress was reluctant at first but ultimately approved the plan when Czechoslovakia became Communist in 1948. This book gives an in-depth discussion of European integration and the influence of Communism on Western Europe.

Emmanuel Neba-Fuh in this comprehensive chronological compilation and thorough narrative of the history of white supremacy in Africa provide an unflinching fresh case that African poverty - a central tenet of the “shithole” demonization, is not a natural feature of geography or a consequence of culture, but a direct product of imperial extraction from the continent – a practice that continues into the present. A brutal and nefarious tale of slave trade, genocides, massacres, dictators supported, progressive leaders murdered, weapon-smuggling, cloak-and-dagger secret services, corruption, international conspiracy, and spectacular military operations, he raised the most basic and fundamental question - how was Africa (the world’s richest continent) raped and reduced to what Donald J. Trump called “shithole?” By V. Mbanwie

"It is the best and most effectively presented history of US foreign policy available. It is extremely well written. Its accessibility is established by the book’s clear writing and presentation, with no sacrifice of the more challenging theoretical and policy debates regarding US foreign policy since 1945." —Glenn Palmer, Penn State University The Gold Standard for Textbooks on American Foreign Policy American Foreign Policy Since World War II provides students with an understanding of America’s current challenges by exploring its historical experience as the world’s predominant power since World War II. Through this process of historical reflection and insight, students become better equipped to place the current problems of the nation’s foreign policy agenda into modern policy context. With each new edition, authors Steven W. Hook and John Spanier find that new developments in foreign policy conform to their overarching theme—there is an American "style" of foreign policy imbued with a distinct sense of national exceptionalism. This Twenty-First Edition continues to explore America’s unique national style with chapters that address the aftershocks of the Arab Spring and the revival of power politics. Additionally, an entirely new chapter devoted to the current administration discusses the implications of a changing American policy under the Trump presidency.

The classic text on the conduct of American foreign policy, Hook and Spanier's book has long set the standard in guiding students through the complexities of the field. With each edition, the authors find that new developments in foreign policy conform to the book's enduring theme-that there is an American "style" of foreign policy imbued with a distinct sense of national exceptionalism. Giving students the historical context they need, the book allows them to truly grasp the functions and frequent dysfunctions of the nation's foreign policy agenda. Thoroughly updated, this nineteenth edition's noteworthy revisions include: Comprehensive coverage of the most recent developments in world politics, including the "Arab Spring," the global debt crisis, and the rise of China as a major world power; Extensive treatment of the gradual U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, its ongoing war in Afghanistan, military operations in Pakistan, the takedown of Osama bin Laden, and the new U.S.-Russian START treaty; Exhaustive coverage of foreign policy under President Barack Obama and its connection to domestic politics, including: Obama's efforts to revive U.S. credibility abroad, to wield soft power along with military muscle, and to extricate the U.S. from Iraq and Afghanistan; and Coverage of new scholarly findings and policy debates that offers new insights on the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Reagan "revolution," the end of the Cold War, and the U.S. response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Book jacket.

A bold new look at war and diplomacy in Europe that traces the idea of a unified continent in attempts since the eighteenth century to engineer lasting peace. Political peace in Europe has historically been elusive and ephemeral. Stella Ghervas shows that since the eighteenth century, European thinkers and leaders in pursuit of lasting peace fostered the idea of European unification. Bridging intellectual and political history, Ghervas draws on the work of philosophers from Abbé de Saint-Pierre, who wrote an early eighteenth-century plan for perpetual peace, to Rousseau and Kant, as well as statesmen such as Tsar Alexander I, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Robert Schuman, and Mikhail Gorbachev. She locates five major conflicts since 1700 that spurred such visionaries to promote systems of peace in Europe: the War of the Spanish Succession, the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Each moment generated a “spirit” of peace among monarchs, diplomats, democratic leaders, and ordinary citizens. The engineers of peace progressively constructed mechanisms and institutions designed to prevent future wars. Arguing for continuities from the ideals of the Enlightenment, through the nineteenth-century Concert of Nations, to the institutions of the European Union and beyond, Conquering Peace illustrates how peace as a value shaped the idea of a unified Europe long before the EU came into being. Today the EU is widely criticized as an obstacle to sovereignty and for its democratic deficit. Seen in the long-range perspective of the history of peacemaking, however, this European society of states emerges as something else entirely: a step in the quest for a less violent world.

There are prevailing paradoxes which must be resolved if we are to advance an educational system worthy of 21st century citizens. A paradox is an apparently contradictory statement which may be true however great the contradiction. Somehow, we have to resolve these contradictions if we are to move forward. “We assume that all can learn, but all do not learn at the same pace and in the same way. Yet, we want everyone to complete schooling at the same time or be judged a failure” (Indiana University Dean of Education, Howard Mehlinger, Retired). During the advent years of the July 4th 2026 Birthday Celebration of The Declaration of Independence, the paradoxes blocking our democratic institutions of learning have not been resolved. The Institute for 21st Century Learning has used in the preparation of LEARN OR DIE a community of national scholars, each having their own insights, yet the knowledge and skill attributes necessary for addressing today’s paradox barriers: Qualitative Action Research; The New Global Economy; The New Urbanism; The New University; Complex Systems Evaluation; 21st Century Leadership; Vision-Based Community Development; and Citizens’ Community Connections and the Transformation of Community Schools. Is the American Revolution still alive?