1996); R. Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
(Touchstone, 1990) are bulky, illuminating and well
written. For an historian’s assessment, see S. Ambrose,
Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913–1962and
Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962–1972(Simon
& Schuster, 1987–9).
There is a synthesis available for the Reagan years:
D. Mervin, Ronald Reagan and the American Presi-
dency (Longman, 1990). For an insider’s criticism
of ‘Reaganomics’, see D. A. Stockman, The Triumph of
Politics: The Inside Story of the Reagan Revolution*
(Avon, 1986).
Race Relations
From the large literature the following are a good start-
ing point: H, Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality,
1954–1980(Hill & Wang, 1981); D. M. Katzman,
Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth
Century(Urbana, 1977); K. Kusmer, A Ghetto Takes
Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870–1930(Urbana, 1976);
Martin Luther King’s own account, Stride toward
Freedom: The Montgomery Story (Harper, 1987); and S.
B. Oates’s biography of the great moderate black leader,
Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King,
Jr (Ment, 1988). King and the black struggle are
vividly portrayed in the Pulitzer-winning book by T.
Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years,
1954–63 (Touchstone, 1989). See also W. H. Chafe,
Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina
and the Black Struggle for Freedom (Oxford, NY,
1980).
The United States and the World
There are some good overviews of US foreign policy:
S. E. Ambrose, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign
Policy since 1938 (7th edn, Penguin, 1996); Seyom
Brown, The Faces of Power: Constancy and Change in
United States Foreign Policy from Truman to Reagan
(Columbia, 1983); R. S. Kirkendall, A Global Power:
America since the Age of Roosevelt (2nd edn, Knopf,
1980); J. W. Spanier, American Foreign Policy since
World War II (Praeger, 1985). Policy towards Latin
America is critically assessed by W. La Feber, Inevitable
Revolutions (revised edn, Norton, 1984) and by the
same author in The Panama Canal: The Crisis
in Historical Perspective (Oxford, 1978). See also
L. Schoultz, Human Rights and United States Policy
toward Latin America (Princeton, 1981). J. W.
Fulbright, the distinguished former chairman of the
Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, in The
Arrogance of Power (Random House, 1966), stressed
the dangers of over-extension, especially from US policy
in Vietnam. Gaddis Smith examines the Carter period in
Morality, Reason, and Power: American Diplomacy in
the Carter Years* (Hill & Wang, 1986). For US policy
in Iran from the close of the Second World War to the
hostage crisis, see B. Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions:
The American Experience in Iran* (Penguin, 1981). For
the period identified with Henry Kissinger, see his own
account, The White House Years(Little, 1979). See also
M. Mandelbaum, The Nuclear Question: The United
States and Nuclear Weapons, 1946–1976* (Cambridge,
1979); L. S. Spector, Nuclear Proliferation Today*
(Vintage, 1984).
Finally, for an examination of the large role television
has played in shaping public opinion, see R. J. Donovan
and R. Scherer, Unsilent Revolution: Television News
and American Public Life, 1948–1991(Cambridge,
1992).
See also section 15, The Cold War.Canada
See R. Bothwell, I. Drummond and J. English, Canada
since 1945: Power Politics and Provincialism (Toronto,
1989) for a good overview. See also K. McNaught, The
Pelican History of Canada* (Penguin, 1985).17 THE SOVIET UNION AND EASTERN
EUROPE SINCE THE SECOND
WORLD WARTwo stimulating general accounts explaining the
Russian way of life by the New York Times correspond-
ent H. Smith: The Russians* (Sphere, 1976) and The
New Russians(Random House, 1990); for the last years
of Stalin, Khrushchev Remembers* (2 vols, Penguin,
1977) can serve as an introduction. On Khrushchev and
destalinisation, see R. and Zh. Medvedev, Khrushchev:
The Years in Power(Oxford, 1977) and C. Linden,
Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership, 1957–64(Johns
Hopkins, 1966), as well as Khrushchev’s memoirs
above. A brief account can be found in A. Nove,
Stalinism and After* (Allen & Unwin, 1975). See also
A. Brown and M. Kaser (eds), The Soviet Union since the
Fall of Khrushchev (2nd edn, Macmillan, 1978) and the
same editors’ Soviet Policy for the 1980s, the sequel cov-
ers political, economic and social developments during
the Brezhnev years of the old Soviet Union, (Macmillan,
1980). Zh. Medvedev wrote a study of Andropov
(Blackwell, 1983); see also R. W. Davies, Soviet History
in the Gorbachev Revolution(Macmillan, 1989).Eastern Europe
An overview is provided by J. Held (ed.), The Columbia
History of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century
(Columbia, 1992). F. Fetjö, A History of the People’s
Democracies and Eastern Europe since Stalin*(2nd edn,
Penguin, 1974) remains one of the best accounts, told
with the inside knowledge of a leading Hungarian news-
paper correspondent. For the early years of communist