Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and Nation Building in the Kennedy Era

By Michael E. Latham

Book Overview

Providing new insight on the intellectual and cultural dimensions of the Cold War, Michael Latham reveals how social science theory helped shape American foreign policy during the Kennedy administration. He shows how, in the midst of America's protracted struggle to contain communism in the developing world, the concept of global modernization moved beyond its beginnings in academia to become a motivating ideology behind policy decisions.

After tracing the rise of modernization theory in American social science, Latham analyzes the way its core assumptions influenced the Kennedy administration's Alliance for Progress with Latin America, the creation of the Peace Corps, and the strategic hamlet program in Vietnam. But as he demonstrates, modernizers went beyond insisting on the relevance of America's experience to the dilemmas faced by impoverished countries. Seeking to accelerate the movement of foreign societies toward a liberal, democratic, and capitalist modernity, Kennedy and his advisers also reiterated a much deeper sense of their own nation's vital strengths and essential benevolence. At the height of the Cold War, Latham argues, modernization recast older ideologies of Manifest Destiny and imperialism.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807848441
• ISBN13: 9780807848449
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

relevant to our wars

This book was published in 2000. Before George Bush became President, and before the terrorist attacks of 2001. There is an ironic aspect to this book, as seen in our current times. The Bush Administration took office deprecating the nation building that its predecessor was wont to favour. Yet, now with American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, a certain amount of nation building seems inevitable, if only to protect American interests. Hence, reading the analysis of what Kennedy's Administration did offers a timeliness that Latham probably did not anticipate during his writing. The book describes policies conducted during the Cold War, especially in the then ramping up conflict in Vietnam. Well, the Cold War is over, but there is now another conflict, with another ideology, radical Islam. Maybe the book has useful ideas?

Cutting Edge Work of History

Modernization as Ideology provides a lucid account of the way the idea of modernization influenced American foreign policy making during the Kennedy Administration. Latham first provides a history of the evolution of modernization theory within American academia, showing how the ideas first proposed by Edward Shils and Talcott Parsons were modified and adapted by scholars such as Walt Rostow and Marion Levy.In the next several chapters Latham offers case studies of the ways that modernization influenced American policies. In particular he discusses the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps, and the Strategic Hamlet Program in Vietnam. In all of these chapters, Latham effectively demonstrates the significance of modernization to U.S. policy.The book is worth reading because it provides perhaps the best scholarly evaluation of how the idea of modernization came to influence the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. It is almost always well organized and effectively written.