The Making of the Cold War Enemy : Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex

Ron Theodore Robin

ISBN 10: 0691114552 / ISBN 13: 9780691114552

Published by Princeton University Press, 2003

About this Item

nach der Bestellung gedruckt Neuware - Printed after ordering - At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government enlisted the aid of a select group of psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists to blueprint enemy behavior. Not only did these academics bring sophisticated concepts to what became a project of demonizing communist societies, but they influenced decision-making in the map rooms, prison camps, and battlefields of the Korean War and in Vietnam. With verve and insight, Ron Robin tells the intriguing story of the rise of behavioral scientists in government and how their potentially dangerous, 'American' assumptions about human behavior would shape U.S. views of domestic disturbances and insurgencies in Third World countries for decades to come. Based at government-funded think tanks, the experts devised provocative solutions for key Cold War dilemmas, including psychological warfare projects, negotiation strategies during the Korean armistice, and morale studies in the Vietnam era. Robin examines factors that shaped the scientists' thinking and explores their psycho-cultural and rational choice explanations for enemy behavior. He reveals how the academics' intolerance for complexity ultimately reduced the nation's adversaries to borderline psychotics, ignored revolutionary social shifts in post-World War II Asia, and promoted the notion of a maniacal threat facing the United States. Putting the issue of scientific validity aside, Robin presents the first extensive analysis of the intellectual underpinnings of Cold War behavioral sciences in a book that will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in the era and its legacy.

Seller Inventory # 9780691114552

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Making of the Cold War Enemy : Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691114552
• ISBN 13: 9780691114552
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 229W x 152H x 17D millimeters 229 millimeters width by 152 millimeters height by 17 millimeters depth
• Weight: 481 grams

About this title

Synopsis

At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government enlisted the aid of a select group of psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists to blueprint enemy behavior. Not only did these academics bring sophisticated concepts to what became a project of demonizing communist societies, but they influenced decision-making in the map rooms, prison camps, and battlefields of the Korean War and in Vietnam. With verve and insight, Ron Robin tells the intriguing story of the rise of behavioral scientists in government and how their potentially dangerous, "American" assumptions about human behavior would shape U.S. views of domestic disturbances and insurgencies in Third World countries for decades to come.


Based at government-funded think tanks, the experts devised provocative solutions for key Cold War dilemmas, including psychological warfare projects, negotiation strategies during the Korean armistice, and morale studies in the Vietnam era. Robin examines factors that shaped the scientists' thinking and explores their psycho-cultural and rational choice explanations for enemy behavior. He reveals how the academics' intolerance for complexity ultimately reduced the nation's adversaries to borderline psychotics, ignored revolutionary social shifts in post-World War II Asia, and promoted the notion of a maniacal threat facing the United States.


Putting the issue of scientific validity aside, Robin presents the first extensive analysis of the intellectual underpinnings of Cold War behavioral sciences in a book that will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in the era and its legacy.

About the Author

Ron Robin is Professor of History and Dean of Students at Haifa University in Israel. He is the author of "Enclaves of America: The Rhetoric of American Political Architecture Abroad" and "The Barbed Wire College: Reeducating German POWs in the United States during World War II" (both Princeton).