Bøker av Bruce Kuklick

"The term "fascist" has been thrown around in American politics and culture for much of the twentieth and twenty-first century. It is a popular epithet that is used to brand all kinds of political opponents from left to right. What does the term mean? How is it used? How did it show up in American history and culture with the rise of fascist regimes in Europe before World War II? Why has its use persisted even as those regimes were defeated? Why has "fascist" come to carry such negative associations? In Fascism Comes to America Bruce Kuklick explores the history of the use and meaning of fascism in American politics and culture for the past hundred years. His survey spans everything from scholarly work to the statements of politicians, the writings of journalists and pundits, and its use in popular culture, particularly in the way fascism has been employed in film. His goal is to figure out how people have used the concept to critique our politics, to comment on the history of the twentieth century, and as a term of derision in politics and culture. Kuklick argues the term has almost no meaning in the way politicians and pundits have used it. He explores its use in popular culture to show how culture critiqued fascism in serious work-i.e. something like Robert Penn Warren's novel All the King's Men on Huey Long-as well as in comedy and satire. He concludes that the use of the term "fascism" illustrates how language is often drained of meaning as it is employed to deride opposing views or to hide real feelings or issues. --- For example, he explores the way the label "fascist" was applied to Roosevelt and his New Deal and in turn applied by Roosevelt and his supporters to those who opposed the New Deal. This became even more pointed as World War II began and the American Firsters and other isolationist groups traded insults as they fought over whether the United States should get into the war. --- Among other things, Kuklick is trying to understand the way language is used in politics and how culture and politics relate, with culture sometimes taking the lead in explicating what politicians and even academics leave murky"--

A fresh and engaging account of America's history from the 15th century to the 21st that navigates complexities without oversimplifying or assuming prior knowledge. Kuklick focuses on politics, but places this in the context of religious culture and emphasizes the assertive expansion at the heart of the development of the U.S.

In this trenchant analysis, historian Bruce Kuklick examines the role of intellectuals in foreign policymaking. He recounts the history of the development of ideas about strategy and foreign policy during a critical period in American history: the era of the nuclear standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union. The book looks at how the country's foremost thinkers advanced their ideas during this time of United States expansionism, a period that culminated in the Vietnam War and detente with the Soviets. Beginning with George Kennan after World War II, and concluding with Henry Kissinger and the Vietnam War, Kuklick examines the role of both institutional policymakers such as those at The Rand Corporation and Harvard's Kennedy School, and individual thinkers including Paul Nitze, McGeorge Bundy, and Walt Rostow. Kuklick contends that the figures having the most influence on American strategy--Kissinger, for example--clearly understood the way politics and the exercise of power affects policymaking. Other brilliant thinkers, on the other hand, often played a minor role, providing, at best, a rationale for policies adopted for political reasons. At a time when the role of the neoconservatives' influence over American foreign policy is a subject of intense debate, this book offers important insight into the function of intellectuals in foreign policymaking.

Shibe Park was demolished in 1976, and today its site is surrounded by the devastation of North Philadelphia. The author, however, vividly evokes the feelings people had about the home of the Philadelphia Athletics and later the Phillies.