Robert S. McNamara is one of modern America's most controversial figures. His opinions, policies, and actions have led to a firestorm of debate, ignited most recently by Errol Morris's Academy Award-winning film, The Fog of War. In the companion book, editors James G. Blight and janet M. Lang use lessons from McNamara's life to examine issues of war and peace in the 20th century. McNamara's career spans some of America's defining events―from the end of World War I, through the course of World War II, and the unfolding of the Cold War in Cuba, Vietnam, and around the world. The Fog of War brings together film transcripts, documents, dialogues, and essays to explore what the horrors and triumphs of the 20th century can teach us about the future.

The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

Blight, James G.

Lang, janet M.

Reference

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

The Fog of War provides the background behind the Academy Award-winning documentary by Errol Morris. In this intriguing work, editors James G. Blight and janet M. Lang, who served as academic advisors on the film, bring together film transcripts, documents, dialogues, and essays to explore the issues raised by Robert McNamara's life and work.

Becoming Enemies brings the unique methods of critical oral history, developed to study flashpoints from the Cold War such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, to understand U.S. and Iranian relations from the fall of the Shah in 1978 through the Iranian hostage crisis and the Iran-Iraq war. Scholars and former officials involved with U.S. and UN policy take a fresh look at U.S and Iranian relations during this time, with special emphasis on the U.S. role in the Iran-Iraq War. With its remarkable declassified documentation and oral testimony that bear directly on questions of U.S. policymaking with regard to the Iran-Iraq War, Becoming Enemies reveals much that was previously unknown about U.S. policy before, during, and after the war. They go beyond mere reportage to offer lessons regarding fundamental foreign policy challenges to the U.S. that transcend time and place.

Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979–1988

History

Banai, Hussein

Tirman MIT, John

Byrne research director the Na, Malcolm

Americas

Becoming Enemies brings the unique methods of critical oral history to understand U.S. and Iranian relations from the fall of the Shah in 1978 through the Iranian hostage crisis and the IranIraq war. Scholars and former officials involved with U.S.

In October, 1962, the Cuban missile crisis brought human civilization to the brink of destruction. On the 50th anniversary of the most dangerous confrontation of the nuclear era, two of the leading experts on the crisis recreate the drama of those tumultuous days as experienced by the leaders of the three countries directly involved: U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and Cuban President Fidel Castro. Organized around the letters exchanged among the leaders as the crisis developed and augmented with many personal details of the circumstances under which they were written, considered, and received, Blight and Lang poignantly document the rapidly shifting physical and psychological realities faced in Washington, Moscow, and Havana. The result is a revolving stage that allows the reader to experience the Cuban missile crisis as never before—through the eyes of each leader as they move through the crisis. The Armageddon Letters: Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis transports the reader back to October 1962, telling a story as gripping as any fictional apocalyptic novel.

The Armageddon Letters: Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

On the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, The Armageddon Letters: Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis recreates the drama of those tumultuous days as experienced by the leaders of the three countries directly involved. They poignantly document the rapidly shifting physical and psychological realities each leader faced, allowing the reader to experience the crisis as never before.

In Dark Beyond Darkness, James Blight and janet Lang, among the world’s foremost authorities on the Cuban missile crisis, synthesize the findings from their thirty-year project on the most dangerous moment in recorded history. Authoritative, accessible, and written with their usual flair and wit, DBD is the first book to take readers deeply inside the experience and calculations of Fidel Castro, who was willing to martyr Cuba if his new Russian ally would nuke the U.S. and destroy it. Blight and Lang have established that in October 1962, the world was on the brink of Armageddon, and that we escaped by luck. Their history is scary but unimpeachably accurate: we just barely escaped the cold and the dark in October 1962. Their history also comes with a warning: we are currently at risk not only of Armageddon-fast, in a war between superpowers, but Armageddon-in-Slow-Motion (the result a climate catastrophe following a regional nuclear war), and from Armageddon, Oops! (a conflict sparked by an accident, which is misinterpreted, and ends in nuclear war). Drawing on the insights of poets, musicians and novelists, as well as climate scientists and agronomists, they show the terrible risk we run by refusing to abolish nuclear weapons.

Dark Beyond Darkness: The Cuban Missile Crisis as History, Warning, and Catalyst

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lang, janet M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lang, janet M.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lang, janet M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979–1988

Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979–1988

The Armageddon Letters: Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis

The Armageddon Letters: Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis

Dark Beyond Darkness: The Cuban Missile Crisis as History, Warning, and Catalyst