Traces the history of the Marshall Plan and the efforts to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism during a two-year period that saw the collapse of postwar U.S.-Soviet relations and the beginning of the Cold War.

" How the United States helped restore a Europe battered by World War II and created the foundation for the postwar international order Seventy years ago, in the wake of World War II, the United States did something almost unprecedented in world history: It launched and paid for an economic aid plan to restore a continent reeling from war. The European Recovery Plan—better known as the Marshall Plan, after chief advocate Secretary of State George C. Marshall—was in part an act of charity but primarily an act of self-interest, intended to prevent postwar Western Europe from succumbing to communism. By speeding the recovery of Europe and establishing the basis for NATO and diplomatic alliances that endure to this day, it became one of the most successful U.S. government programs ever. The Brookings Institution played an important role in the adoption of the Marshall Plan. At the request of Arthur Vandenberg, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Brookings scholars analyzed the plan, including the specifics of how it could be implemented. Their report gave Vandenberg the information he needed to shepherd the plan through a Republican-dominated Congress in a presidential election year. In his foreword to this book, Brookings president Strobe Talbott reviews the global context in which the Truman administration pushed the Marshall Plan through Congress, as well as Brookings' role in that process. The book includes Marshall's landmark speech at Harvard University in June 1947 laying out the rationale for the European aid program, the full text of the report from Brookings analyzing the plan, and the lecture Marshall gave upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. The book concludes with an essay by Bruce Jones and Will Moreland that demonstrates how the Marshall Plan helped shape the entire postwar era and how today's leaders can learn from the plan's challenges and successes. "

Traces America's four-year diplomatic efforts to help rebuild post-World War II Europe, an endeavor that involved a thirteen-billion-dollar plan and was heavily influenced by political factors.

Between 1948 and 1951, the Marshall Plan delivered an unprecedented $12.3 billion in U.S. aid to help Western European countries recover from the destruction of the Second World War, and forestall Communist influence in that region. The Marshall Plan: A New Deal for Europe examines the aid program, its ideological origins and explores how ideas about an Americanized world order inspired and influenced the Marshall Plan’s creation and execution. The book provides a much-needed re-examination of the Plan, enabling students to understand its immediate impact and its political, social, and cultural legacy. Including essential primary documents, this concise book will be a key resource for students of America’s role in the world at mid-century.

This book examines the historical, diplomatic, economic, and strategic aspects of the European Recovery Program (ERP) - popularly known as the Marshall Plan.

Originally published in 1987 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, this fascinating collection of essays, from an eminent âe~insiderâe(tm) to the Marshall Plan, combines economics, politics and history to provide authoritative and personal insights into the creation of one of the greatest foreign aid programmes of the twentieth century. Any reader interested in the Marshall Plan itself, the inner workings of a major act of US foreign policy, and its many economic, political and historical facets will welcome the reissue of this valuable book from one of Americaâe(tm)s most distinguished economists.

An Economist Best Book of 2018 New York Times Book Review Editor’s Pick “Gripping [and] splendid.… An enormous contribution to our understanding of Marshall.”—Washington Post At the end of World War II, General George Marshall took on what he thought was a final mission—this time not to win a war, but to stop one. In China, conflict between Communists and Nationalists threatened to suck in the United States and escalate into revolution. Marshall’s charge was to cross the Pacific, broker a peace, and prevent a Communist takeover, all while staving off World War III. At first, the results seemed miraculous. But as they started to come apart, Marshall was faced with a wrenching choice—one that would alter the course of the Cold War, define the US-China relationship, and spark one of the darkest-ever turns in American political life. The China Mission offers a gripping, close-up view of the central figures of the time—from Marshall, Mao, and Chiang Kai-shek to Eisenhower, Truman, and MacArthur—as they stood face-to-face and struggled to make history, with consequences and lessons that echo today.