Richard B. Russell: Southern Nationalism and American Foreign Policy (Biographies in American Foreign Policy) [Hardcover]

Jeff Woods (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 7, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0742544974 | ISBN-13: 978-0742544970 | Edition: annotated edition

Richard B. Russell, a Southern Democrat, was arguably the most influential United States senator for much of the 1950s and 1960s. In this engaging study, Jeff Woods considers Russell in the context of 'traditional' regional politics and exhibits how a domestic policy agenda influenced foreign policy at the height of the Cold War. Russell, the senior senator from Georgia, used his position of power to confront an otherwise liberal internationalist foreign policy establishment with his non-interventionist, militarist, and Southern nationalist approaches. His position was influential in the playing out of various international crises, including the conflicts in Vietnam, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Congo. For better or for worse, Russell helped to encourage the nuclear arms race, protect and empower the CIA, enforce the Monroe Doctrine, and define the limits on American engagement in Vietnam. While Russell mastered the powers of advice and consent enough to alter tactical Cold War decisions, his strategy of containment would never become mainstream. In this engaging new book, Jeff Woods reconsiders RussellOs role as foreign policy maker during the Cold War. Making use of recently released presidential tape recordings and archival material, Woods offers new evidence and insights into this southern senatorOs influential career.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Jeff Woods's new study is an intriguing look at an important dissenting view on U.S. foreign policy during the 1940s and 1950s. Due partly to a white supremacist ideology that blinded him to larger political realities, Russell, a prominent Senator from Georgia, called for significantly expanding the U.S. military arsenal. This was not to aid the internationalist aim of spreading American values and institutions but in order to defend the nation itself. In our contemporary era of American war-making, Woods's fine narrative recounting the career of Russell's hawkish nationalism makes for particularly interesting and provocative reading. (Tim Borstelmann )

Woods' nicely balanced study provides a helpful background, even as Russell's southern successors, now Republicans, seem to have switched sides. (Foreign Affairs )

In this insightful review of Russell's role in U.S. foreign policy, Jeff Woods makes a strong case for the inclusion of the senator in this series. (The Journal Of Southern History )

Jeff Woods addresses the intriguing topic of how southern history shaped the foreign policy views of Richard Russel, the prominent U.S. senator from Georgia. Woods saves his best for last in his coverage of the Georgian and the Vietnam War in the final two chapters. The variety of sources consulted is another strong point of the book. Richard B. Russel is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in southern politics and the Cold War. (Georgia Historical Quarterly )

Careful in both research and writing, Woods shows the strengths as well as the weaknesses of a ‘traditional’ southern approach to world affairs in the 20th century, a type of analysis hard to find: while most of his compatriots slowly became 'Americanized,' Russell persisted in his southernism. (McWilliams, Tennant )

About the Author

Jeff Woods is associate professor of history at Arkansas Tech University. He is the author of Black Struggle, Red Scare: Segregation and Anticommunism in the South, 1948-1968.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; annotated edition edition (December 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742544974
• ISBN-13: 978-0742544970
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,285,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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