Proud Decades: America in War and Peace, 1941-1960 (Revised)

by John Patrick Diggins

Book Overview

From Pearl Harbor to the election of John F. Kennedy, America witnessed--and caused--great change both at home and abroad. No two decades so reveal the heart of America as the 1940s and 1950s; no... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393956563
• ISBN13: 9780393956566
• Release Date: August 1989
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Two sides to every argument

Historical reviewer Carter was correct in putting Diggins in the synthesis camp. Diggins acknowledged the revisionist view on many events. He agreed with the revisionist view that Roosevelt could have done more to save Jews in the concentration camps. But Diggins also pointed out the traditionalist view that Roosevelt felt defeating the Nazi war machine was the best long-term salvation for the Jews.He showed both sides over the debate on dropping the atomic bomb. He brought up the revisionists? opinions that Truman could have simply had a demonstration of the bomb on an island near Japan, and that the second bomb was dropped too soon after the first, not giving the Japanese government time to react. Yet Diggins also admitted that Japanese soldiers had not shown a willingness to surrender and that an invasion would have killed more people than the bombs killed. He wrote: ?The sorrow and the glory in this period of America?s past are inseparable. To be worthy of truth, history must make us shudder as well as smile.? Diggins is a true synthesis historian.