Lloyd C. Gardner Libri

Now available in paperback, this sweeping and authoritative narrative is essential reading in the study of the conflict in Iraq that has plagued the first decade of the 20th century. A unique and thorough study, it places the Iraq War in the context of US foreign policy since Vietnam, casting the conflict as a chapter in a much broader story of US and allied forces' diplomatic and military moves in the region. In a disturbing account, Gardner shows how the Iraq War is a necessary outcome of doomed US policies.

The book offers a profound analysis of American foreign policy, examining the ideological and economic factors that fueled expansion and intervention from the 19th century through the Cold War. It highlights the connections between historical events, such as the interventions in Vietnam and Iraq, and the underlying beliefs that shaped U.S. actions. William Appleman Williams's insights remain relevant, particularly in light of contemporary geopolitical events in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, making this work a significant contribution to understanding American imperialism.

The war within the war was the struggle among Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin for the shape of the world that would follow World War II. That delicate diplomacy is spelled out in Lloyd Gardner's brilliant reinterpretation of the negotiations that divided Europe and laid the foundations of the cold war. Gardner begins his story not in 1941 but with the British attempt to appease Hitler at Munich in 1938. Here, the author argues, were the roots of the territorial agreements that culminated at Yalta—the "spheres of influence" which the Americans sought to avoid as a curse on the possibilities of a freer and more liberal world economy. Using the most recently opened sources, including those from Soviet archives, Gardner captures the atmosphere of these momentous events in glimpses of the major personalities and a persuasive analysis of the course of events. He shows how Roosevelt tried to avoid the partition of Europe that Churchill and Stalin wanted, but ultimately settled for it in the hope of keeping the Allies together to make a more lasting peace. Playing for time, FDR ran out of it. The result was the cold war—which Gardner concludes may have been preferable to World War III.