The Atlantic and Its Enemies

by Norman Stone

  On the political side, see Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life (2003), on JFK, and his Flawed Giant (1999) on Johnson, and Robert E. Quirk, Fidel Castro (1996). Of books on Vietnam, I single out despite very strong competition Michael Lind, Vietnam (2002), Frances Fitzgerald, Fire in the Lake (2002), Mark W. Woodruff, Unheralded Victory (1999), and Gabriel Kolko, Vietnam (1986). See also Margaret Macmillan, Nixon and Mao (2007). Jonathan Aitken, Nixon (1993), is sympathetic.

  The worldwide inflationary consequences of this era are documented by Harold James, International Financial History in the Twentieth Century (2003), and Barry Eichengreen, The European Economy since 1945 (2007). Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money (2008), is a superb exercise in perspective, with sharp comments as to particular instances of greed and stupidity. Daniel Yergin, The Prize (1992), examines the most important element in the inflationary crisis of the 1970s and has also become a classic.

  The counter-attack of the later 1970s and the following capitalist boom of the 1980s are recorded in Arthur Seldon, Capitalism (1990), Edward Luttwak, Turbo-Capitalism (1998), Paul Craig Roberts, The Supply Side Revolution (1984). Andrew Brown, Fishing in Utopia (2008), is a sympathetic account of the failure of the Swedish model. Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty (1989), attacks the business, or racket, of international aid. It owes much to Peter Bauer, Reality and Rhetoric (1985).

  American demonstrations that the welfare system had failed are legion, but see especially Charles Murray, Losing Ground (1984), and Myron Magnet, The Dream and the Nightmare (2000). Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights (1998), are triumphalist.

  Chile emerges with Nathaniel Davis, The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende (1985), and Mary Helen Spooner, Soldiers in a Narrow Land: The Pinochet Regime in Chile (1994); and Turkey in Andrew Mango, The Turks To-day (2004), Nicole Pope and Hugh Pope, Turkey Unveiled (2004), Hamit Bozarslan, La Question kurde (1997), Anne Krueger and Okan Aktan, Swimming against the Tide (1992), and William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (1993). A good account is Mehmet Ali Birand, Thirty Hot Days (1985), but we are not spoiled for Turks’ own accounts of their recent history.

  For British affairs, we are indeed spoiled. Hugo Young, One of Us (1989), is understanding of Margaret Thatcher’s approach, though at the time he was a considerable critic. Richard Cockett’s Thinking the Unthinkable (1994) is a classic about the IEA. The memoirs of Denis Healey (1989), Nigel Lawson (1992) and of course Margaret Thatcher herself (1993 and 1995) record the era. John Hoskyns’s Just in Time (2000) is a little gem as to what went wrong, right and wrong again. Ferdinand Mount, Mind the Gap (2004), is an immensely thoughtful exercise. Melanie Phillips, All Must Have Prizes (1996), is another on education. In general, Alan Sked, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Post-War Britain (1997), and Richard Vinen, Thatcher’s Britain (2009), can be strongly recommended.

  The fate of the eighties ‘revolution’ in the Atlantic world causes head-shaking. The poet of the era is Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), but there are precursors of great power, Radical Chic (1970), The Painted Word (1975), and From Bauhaus to Our House (1981), making mock. For England, Simon Jenkins, Accountable to None (1995), is a brilliant book. David Frum, Dead Right (1995), shows how developments in finance derailed affairs in the USA. By contrast, Lou Cannon, President Reagan (1991), accepts he was wrong about the deficits. Niall Ferguson, Colossus (2005), shakes his head. A very thoughtful account of the USA is John Micklethwaite and Adrian Wooldridge, The Right Nation (2004). The grubby underside of the 1980s appears in Michael Lewis, Liar’s Poker (1989), and Tom Bower, Maxwell (1988), while the strange cultural impoverishment is well displayed by Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation (2002), and Reefer Madness (2004). The thoughtful will find much thought in Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism (1996), Michael Medved, Hollywood vs America (1993), and Robert Hewison, Culture and Consensus (1995). Since the financial upheavals that came with the end of the Reagan era, there have been a great many alarmist and even contemptuous accounts, notably from Paul Krugman, e.g. Peddling Prosperity (1994). Joseph Stiglitz, The Roaring Nineties (2004), has less than the usual problem, of failing to explain why the seventies did not roar. Robert L. Bartley, The Seven Fat Years (1995), is another classic on the Reagan years and what went wrong. Kenneth Hopper and William Hopper, The Puritan Gift (2007), is a splendid demonstration of the fantasy world of the business school. Finally, a work of futurology which, unlike so many, survives: Hamish McRae, The World in 2020 (1994).

  On the end of the Cold War, aside from Soutou and Fontaine, cited above, there are good essays on separate subjects. John O’Sullivan, The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister (2006), and Peter Schweizer, Victory (1996), set out the Reagan-Thatcher strategy. On separate theatres there are good books, e.g. Walter Lafeber, Inevitable Revolutions, on US involvement in Central America (1984) and an excellent English account, Simon Strong, Shining Path (1992). It notes the Kurdish connection of the Peruvian Sendero Luminoso. Christopher Kremmer, The Carpet Wars (2003), and Henry S. Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention (1999), cover the Afghan tragedy. As an Islamic dimension developed, self-pity and resentment emerged with Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), of which there is a stupendous destruction job done by Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing (2006).

  For the end of the Soviet bloc, the once sniffed-at Right clearly had the best of things. Vladimir Boukovsky, Jugement à Moscou (1995), is a wonderful book, for some odd reason only partially translated into English. It was based on Politburo documents and much else; see also Evgeny Novikov, Gorbachev and the Collapse of the Soviet Communist Party (1994). There are two further French accounts: Françoise Thom, The Gorbachev Phenomenon (1989), and Alain Besançon, Présent soviétique et passé russe (1980). More conventional accounts are John B. Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (1995), and, by a veteran of sovietology, Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (1996). Another view is Ben Fowkes, The Dissolution of the Soviet Union (1997). Ronald G. Suny, The Soviet Experiment (1998), is important for the nationality dimension. Charles Maier, Dissolution (1998), shows how the end of East Germany was planned from Moscow. Jens Hacker, Deutsche Irrtümer, Schönfärber und Helfershelfer der SED-Diktatur im Westen (1992), and Stefan Wolle, Die heile Welt der Diktatur (1998), show how it had to be done in the teeth of considerable unenthusiasm from West Germany.

  Finally, Europe. Its ever-closer union does not make for an interesting story line, and that side of things is best confined to efficient short accounts, such as Michael Maclay, The European Union (1998). European success stories are of course there: Charles Powell, España en democracia 1975-2000 (2001), and John Hooper, The New Spaniards (2006), splendidly discuss the case of Spain. However, other than in the British case, the ‘European’ story is on the whole one of head-shaking and pessimism. Marc Fumaroli, L’Etat culturel (1992), is a brilliant book on the displacement of the old university by an ever-grinning ministry of culture. H.-P. Schwarz, Die gezähmten Deutschen (1985), wonders why German policy is either ‘me, too’ or ‘oh, dear’. Bernard Connolly, The Rotten Heart of Europe (1995), is dismissive of Brussels manoeuvring, and David Marsh, Germany and Europe (1994), shows how very keen the Germans were to have, in the flat turn of speech, a European Germany rather than a German Europe. David Smith, Will Europe Work? (1999), is a good piece of Atlantic scepticism. As to where we all go from here, the latter chapters of Niall Ferguson’s Ascent of Money, not greatly interested by Europe, not vastly admiring of the bankers’ role, but very taken up with the relationship of the United States and China, are a very good pointer.

  Index

  A

  Abakumov, Viktor

  Abdullah, King of Jordan

  Abercrombie, Sir Patrick

  Abidjan

  ABM (anti-ballistic missile) treaty (1972)

  abortion

  Abrams, Creighton

  Acheson, Dean

  actors, politics of

  Adana


  Adenauer, Konrad:

  acceptance of division of Germany

  and Berlin crisis of

  diplomatic relations with USSR

  and EEC

  and Erhard

  founding of Christian Democratic Union

  and Franco-German relations

  privatization policy

  and Suez crisis

  and universities

  and welfare system

  Adzhubey, Alexey

  Afghanistan

  AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations)

  Aganbegyan, Abel

  Ağca, Mehmet Alı

  Agent Orange (herbicide)

  Agitation and Propaganda, Department of (USSR)

  Agnew, Spiro

  Agrarian Party (Czechoslovak)

  AIDS

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Aitmatov, Cingiz

  Akhmatova, Anna

  Alaska

  Alaskan Pipeline

  Albania

  Albanians

  Alevis

  Algeria:

  French rule

  independence

  nationalism

  oil production

  pieds noirs

  Algerian war (1954-62)

  Algiers

  Aliev, Haydar

  Allende, Salvador:

  background and character

  and Carter

  election as president

  international reputation

  overthrow and death

  reforms

  speech to United Nations (1972)

  ‘Alliance for Progress’ (American plan for Latin America)

  Alma Ata

  Almeida, Juan

  Alsthom-Atlantique (corporation)

  Altamira, Carlos

  Althusser, Louis

  Altman, Nathan

  Amalrik, Andrey

  Amin, Hafizullah

  Anatolia

  GAP project

  Anderson, Lindsay

  Andics, Erzsébert

  Andreotti, Giulio

  Andropov, Yuri:

  and Afghanistan

  General Secretary

  and Gorbachev

  KGB head

  nationalities policy

  Angola

  Ankara

  Ankara College

  Ankara University

  Bilkent University

  Çubuk reservoir

  Middle East Technical University

  Anna Comnena, Princess

  Annan, Noel, Baron

  Our Age

  Antep

  anti-alcohol campaign (USSR)

  anti-Fascism

  anti-semitism

  anti-Zionism

  Ap Bac, battle of (1963)

  appeasement

  Apple (corporation)

  Aqaba, Gulf of

  Aquinas, Thomas

  Arab Legion

  Arafat, Yasser

  Aragon, Louis

  Araucanian Indians

  Arbatov, Georgy

  Arbenz, Jacobo

  Arendt, Hannah

  Argentina

  Falklands War (1982)

  Arizona

  Armenia

  Armenians

  ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam)

  Assad, Hafiz

  Assyrian Christians

  Astor, David

  Aswan Dam

  AT&T (corporation)

  Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal

  Athens

  atomic bombs:

  American

  British

  espionage

  Soviet see also nuclear weapons

  Atomic Energy Commission

  Atomium (Brussels)

  Attali, Jacques

  Auschwitz concentration camp

  Australia

  Austria:

  army

  author’s studies in

  Catholic Church

  Communist Party

  cultural institutions

  Dollfuss dictatorship

  espionage in

  Jewish transit centre

  Marshall Plan aid

  neutrality

  post-war occupation zones

  pre-First World War parliament

  private companies

  relations with Hungary

  Social Democrats

  Staatsvertrag (state treaty; 1955)

  and USSR

  war criminals

  Yugoslav territorial claims

  Austrian school of economics

  Austro-Hungarian empire

  automobile industry:

  Britain

  France

  Germany

  Italy

  Japan

  Sweden

  USA

  AVO (Hungarian security police)

  Aylwin, Patricio

  Azerbaidjan

  Azeri Turks

  Aznavour, Charles

  B

  Baader, Andreas

  Bacílek, Karol

  Bacon, Robert, Britain’s Economic Problem

  Bad Godesberg

  Baden

  Baden-Baden

  Baekeland, Leo

  Baghdad Pact

  Bagram airbase

  Bahr, Egon

  Bahrain

  Bakelite

  Baker, James

  Baker, Kenneth, Baron Baker of Dorking

  Baku

  Congress of the Peoples of the East (1920)

  Balfour Declaration (1917)

  Balogh, Sándor

  Balogh, Thomas, Baron

  Baltic states see also Estonia; Latvia; Lithuania

  Baltimore

  Baluchis

  Balzac, Honoré de

  Bandung conference (1955)

  Bank of England

  Bank for International Settlements

  banking crisis (2008-9)

  Barcelona

  Barchard, David

  Bari

  Barings Bank

  Barkey, Henri

  Barnett, Correlli

  Barraclough, Geoffrey, Origins of Modern Germany

  Barthes, Roland

  Bartley, Robert

  Barzani, Mustafa

  BASF (corporation)

  Basle

  Batista, Fulgencio

  Bauer, Peter, Baron

  Bavaria

  Bay of Pigs invasion (1961)

  Bayly, Sir Christopher

  Bayonne

  Bayreuth

  BBC

  Bearsden, Scotland

  Beatles, the

  Beckett, Samuel

  Beduins

  Beethoven, Ludwig van

  Fidelio

  Belgian Congo

  Belgium:

  coal and steel production

  colonies

  and EEC

  and Kurdish nationalism

  and Marshall Plan

  nationalism

  oil imports

  Second World War

  universities see also Benelux

  Belgrano (battleship)

  Bell, Marie

  Ben Bella, Ahmed

  Benelux

  Beneš, Edvard

  Bengal

  Bennett, Catherine

  Bennett, William

  Beria, Lavrenti

  overthrow and execution

  Berkeley, University of

  Berlin:

  blockade of 1948-9

  bomb damage

  crisis of 1961

  introduction of Deutsche Mark in Western zone

  Soviet occupation zone

  wartime

  see also East Berlin; West Berlin

  Berlin Wall:

  building of

  fall of

  Berman, Jakub

  Besançon, Alain

  Bessarabia

  Bessmertnykh, Aleksandr

  Bevin, Ernest

  Bichelonne, Jean

  Bien Hoa airfield

  Biermann, Wolf

 
Bierut, Bolesław

  Biffen, John, Baron

  Bilkent University

  Bíngöl

  biological warfare

  biotechnology

  Birmingham

  Birmingham University

  Bismarck, Otto von

  Bissell, Richard

  Bitlis

  ‘Bizonia’/‘Trizonia’ (Allied occupation zones in Germany)

  Blackbourn, David

  Blair, Tony

  Blake, William

  Blanning, Tim

  Bloch, Ernst

  Blunt, (Sir) Anthony

  Blyukher, Vasily

  BMW (automobile manufacturer)

  ‘boat people’:

  Cambodian

  Vietnamese

  Bodleian Library, Oxford

  Bogomolov, Oleg

  Bohlen, Charles E.

  Bohley, Bärbel

  Böhm, Karl

  Bokassa, Jean-Bédel

  Bolivia

  Bologna

  Bolsheviks:

  and bureaucracy

  and China

  Civil War

  Congress of the Peoples of the East (1920)

  lies of

  Revolution

  and science

  Bond, James (fictional character)

  Bonn

  Borinage

  Borland Software Corporation

  Borodin, Mikhail

  Boston

  Bourgès-Maunoury, Maurice

  BP (British Petroleum)

  Bradlee, Ben

  Braestrup, Peter

  Brandt, Willy:

  background and character

  elected Chancellor

  foreign minister

  mayor of West Berlin

  memoirs

  Nobel Peace Prize

  Ostpolitik

  resignation

  Braşov

  Bratislava

  author’s imprisonment in

  Braudel, Fernand

  Braun, Otto

  Brazil

  Breakfast at Tiffany’s (film)

  Brecht, Bertolt

  Brentano, Lujo

  Brescia

  Brest-Litovsk

  Bretherton, Russell

  Bretton Woods conference (1944)

  Bretton Woods system

  end of

  Triffin Dilemma

  Brezhnev, Leonid:

  and Afghanistan

  and arms limitiation talks

  background and character