In the spring of 1954, after eight years of bitter fighting, the war in Vietnam between the French and the communist-led Vietminh came to a head. With French forces reeling, the United States planned to intervene militarily to shore-up the anti-communist position. Turning to its allies for support, first and foremost Great Britain, the US administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower sought to create what Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called a “united action” coalition. In the event, Winston Churchill's Conservative government refused to back the plan. Fearing that US-led intervention could trigger a wider war in which the United Kingdom would be the first target for Soviet nuclear attack, the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, was determined to act as Indochina peacemaker – even at the cost of damage to the Anglo-American “special relationship”. In this important study, Kevin Ruane and Matthew Jones revisit a Cold War episode in which British diplomacy played a vital role in settling a crucial question of international war and peace. Eden's diplomatic triumph at the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina is often overshadowed by the 1956 Suez Crisis which led to his political downfall. This book, however, recalls an earlier Eden: a skilled and experienced international diplomatist at the height of his powers who may well have prevented a localised Cold War crisis escalating into a general Third World War.

The years 1900 to 1954 marked the transformation from an exotic, colonized "Far East" to a more autonomous, prominent "Asia Pacific". This anthology examines the grand strategies of great powers as they vied for influence and ultimately hegemony in the region. At the turn of the twentieth century, the main contestants included the venerable British Empire and the aspiring Japan and United States. The unwieldy leviathan of China, the European imperial holdings in Southeast Asia, and the expanses of the western Pacific emerged as battlegrounds in literal and geopolitical terms. Other less powerful nations, such as India, Burma, Australia, and French Indochina, also exercised agency in crafting grand strategies to further their interests and in their interactions with those great powers. Among the many factors affecting all nations invested in the Asia Pacific were such traditional elements as economics, military power, and diplomacy, as well as fluid traits like ideology, culture, and personality. The era saw the decline of British and European influence in the Asia Pacific, the rise and fall of Japanese imperialism, the emergence of American primacy, the ongoing struggle for independence in Southeast Asia, and China’s resurrection as a contender for hegemony. Great powers shifted and so too did their grand strategies.

This book sheds light on a neglected aspect of India's Cold War diplomacy, starting with the role of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Congress government in organizing the first Asian-African Conference in Bandung in April 1955. Andrea Benvenuti shows how, in the early Cold War, Nehru seized the opportunity accorded by the conference to transcend growing international tensions and pursue an alternative vision: a neutralized Asian "area of peace," underpinned by a code of conduct based on the five principles of peaceful coexistence. Relying on Indian, Western and Chinese archival sources, Nehru's Bandung focuses on the policy concerns and calculations, as well as the international factors, that drove a skeptical Nehru to support Indonesia's diplomatic push for such a gathering. It reveals how, in Nehru's estimation, Bandung also served a further important purpose--securing China's commitment to peaceful coexistence, without which stability in Asia would be illusory. Nehru's support for an Asian-African conference did not derive from an emotional commitment to Afro-Asian internationalism. Instead, it stemmed from a desire to promote a 'third way' in an increasingly polarized world, and to forge a stable regional order--one that would enhance India's external security and domestic prosperity.

This new edition masterfully explains the origins and outcome of America's war in Vietnam by focusing on its local dimensions.

A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower brings new depth to the historiography of this significant and complex figure, providing a comprehensive and up-to-date depiction of both the man and era. Thoughtfully incorporates new and significant literature on Dwight D. Eisenhower Thoroughly examines both the Eisenhower era and the man himself, broadening the historical scope by which Eisenhower is understood and interpreted Presents a complete picture of Eisenhower’s many roles in historical context: the individual, general, president, politician, and citizen This Companion is the ideal starting point for anyone researching America during the Eisenhower years and an invaluable guide for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in history, political science, and policy studies Meticulously edited by a leading authority on the Eisenhower presidency with chapters by international experts on political, international, social, and cultural history

Nigel J. Ashton analyses Anglo-American relations during a crucial phase of the Cold War. He argues that although policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic used the term 'interdependence' to describe their relationship this concept had different meanings in London and Washington. The Kennedy Administration sought more centralized control of the Western alliance, whereas the Macmillan Government envisaged an Anglo-American partnership. This gap in perception gave rise to a 'crisis of interdependence' during the winter of 1962-3, encompassing issues as diverse as the collapse of the British EEC application, the civil war in the Yemen, the denouement of the Congo crisis and the fate of the British independent nuclear deterrent.

Retracing the confused pattern of planning for escalation of the Vietnam War, Moise reconstructs the events of the night of August 4, 1964, when the U.S. Navy destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy reported that they were under attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. Using declassified records and interviews with the participants, Moise demonstrates that there was no North Vietnamese attack; the original report was a genuine mistake.