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.

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

A re-interpretation of the Marshall Plan, as an extension of strategic American policy, views the plan as the "brainchild" of the New Deal coalition of progressive private and political interests.