International politics since world war II: short history

This book is a survey of international affairs since the end of World War II, primarily intended for students but, hopefully, one that may be of interest to others who have lived through these extraordinary times.

Like many other teachers I have found it hard to realize that twenty years have passed since World War II, and that to many of my stu dents what I consider to be current events-the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, the Suez War-are nothing but vague historical events, comparable to, but often less well-known than, much earlier events. And I find that friends who have been adults (more or less) through out the period have often forgotten much that has passed, or how much certain things have changed.

This book, then, is a summary and synthesis, drawn in large part from numerous secondary sources, but also from the plethora of memoirs and document collections on the period. It attempts to do a difficult thing: to both indicate the broad sweep of historical change and recall at the same time the numerous specific events that made up these changes. The result will certainly not satisfy most people: I have had to select and summarize, and many will object to what I have selected and to how I have summarized. I have tried to be fair and "objective." But objectivity does not preclude a point of view-one that I would like to make clear.

International politics differs from domestic politics chiefly because power to make authoritative decisions is decentralized among a num ber of distinct geographical units. A host of consequences flow from this, chief among which is the large measure of uncertainty and in determinacy governing the conduct of foreign policies of states in the international system. Policy-makers act on the basis of assumptions, not the truth. Therefore when describing major events I have spent much time surveying the different assumptions on which policy-makers acted.