Customer Reviews

Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment

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This book is a must for those studying American foreign policy, especially in the present climate of religious intolerance.

Inboden highlights little known facts to reveal the lengths to which American religious leaders co-operated with the State against communism in the Cold War. This fact should be emphasised in our present world situation.

Doris LeRoy
Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.

Wiliam Inboden's book on Religion and American foreign Policy is a good attempt to establish that truth contrary to the claims of its founders, that religion has always influenced the United States society and its foreign policy. The cold war era'a containment policy was no exception and Inboden just takes out a sapmple period in the entire American foreign policy history to prove this.

The religious-ethical basis of containment, whether it has a self imposed grand isolation or a bid to contain and isolate the erstwhile Soviet Union are extremely interlinked. The entire gamut of US post war foreign policies show that adversaries may change but not the policy of isolating the opponents. American concept of liberal democracy indeed flounders on the rock of this single policy concept that has even used international forums like the UN for that purpose. Huntington has already established how religion deeply influenced the American psyche.

Inboden's book is well researched and specialized in that it is restricted from 1945 to 1960 but this period has been the trend setter for all future US foreign policies.

Gautam Maitra
Author of 'Tracing the Eagle's Orbit: Illuminating Insights into Major US Foreign Policies Since Independence'.