Author Description

Since World War II, in a world of democratic powers and peripheral combat, economic diplomacy has become the chief engine of global politics and prosperity. In a book that will take its place alongside the great diplomatic histories of the period, Diane Kunz offers a definitive history of 50 years of American economic diplomacy. From the Marshall Plan, to Bretton Woods, the Suez Crisis, the Alliance for Progress, the oil shocks, and beyond, America's international economic leadership has been controversial, at times misguided, difficult to sustain, yet ultimately triumphant. Though traditional wisdom insists that leaders must choose guns or butter - that arms and prosperity are at odds - Kunz argues the controversial thesis that America's economic and security policies worked hand-in-glove. With the great cause of containing communism as a driving force, presidents from Truman to Reagan built a nation both prosperous and strong while helping America's allies to achieve similar strengths. Diane Kunz's masterful narrative recounts the missing story at the heart of the American century.