FDR's ambassadors and the diplomacy of crisis from the rise of Hitler to the end of World War II /

Mayers, David Allan, 1951-

FDR's ambassadors and the diplomacy of crisis from the rise of Hitler to the end of World War II / [electronic resource] : David Mayers. - New York : Cambridge University Press, 2013. - xiv, 372 p. : ill.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. Axis: 1. Rising sun; 2. Third Reich; 3. New Roman Empire; Part II. Victims: 4. Middle Kingdom; 5. France Agonistes; Part III. Victors: 6. Britannia; 7. Great Patriotic War; 8. Conclusions: US diplomacy and war; Bibliography.

"What effect did personality and circumstance have on US foreign policy during World War II? This incisive account of US envoys residing in the major belligerent countries - Japan, Germany, Italy, China, France, Great Britain, USSR - highlights the fascinating role played by such diplomats as Joseph Grew, William Dodd, William Bullitt, Joseph Kennedy and W. Averell Harriman. Between Hitler's 1933 ascent to power and the 1945 bombing of Nagasaki, US ambassadors sculpted formal policy - occasionally deliberately, other times inadvertently - giving shape and meaning not always intended by Franklin D. Roosevelt or predicted by his principal advisors. From appeasement to the Holocaust and the onset of the Cold War, David Mayers examines the complicated interaction between policy, as conceived in Washington, and implementation on the ground in Europe and Asia. By so doing, he also sheds needed light on the fragility, ambiguities and enduring urgency of diplomacy and its crucial function in international politics"--


Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest, 2015. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest affiliated libraries.

9781139845335 (electronic bk.)




Roosevelt, Franklin D. 1882-1945.


Ambassadors--History--United States--20th century.
World War, 1939-1945--Diplomatic history.


United States--Foreign relations--1933-1945.


Electronic books.

E806 / .M424 2013

973.917