James G. Blight

janet M. Lang

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.

Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

The Fog of War

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.

The Cuban Missile Crisis as History, Warning, and Catalyst

Dark Beyond Darkness

David A. Welch

The Virtual JFK DVD is now available! For more information on the film companion to the book, visit http://www.virtualjfk.com/ It Matters Who Is President—Then and Now At the heart of this provocative book lies the fundamental question: Does it matter who is president on issues of war and peace? The Vietnam War was one of the most catastrophic and bloody in living memory, and its lessons take on resonance in light of America's current devastating involvement in Iraq. Tackling head-on the most controversial and debated "what if" in U.S. foreign policy, this unique work explores what President John F. Kennedy would have done in Vietnam if he had not been assassinated in 1963. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified documents, frank oral testimony of White House officials from both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and the analysis of top historians, this book presents compelling evidence that JFK was ready to end U.S. involvement well before the conflict escalated. With vivid immediacy, readers will feel they are in the president's war room as the debates raged that forever changed the course of American history—and continue to affect us profoundly today as the shadows of Vietnam stretch into Iraq.

janet M. Lang

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