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The Ugly American
''The Ugly American'' is a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer that depicts the failures of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Southeast Asia. The book caused a sensation in diplomatic circles and had major political implications. The Peace Corps was established during the Kennedy administration partly as a result of the book. The bestseller has remained continuously in print and is one of the most influential American political novels. It has been called an "iconic Cold War text." Background Authors William Lederer was an American author and captain in the U.S. Navy who served as special assistant to the commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific and Asian theater. Eugene Burdick was an American political scientist, novelist, and non-fiction writer, and served in the Navy during World War II. The two met in the build-up to the Vietnam War. The authors were disillusioned with the style and substance of U.S. diplomatic efforts in Southeast Asia. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugene Burdick
Eugene Leonard Burdick (December 12, 1918 – July 26, 1965) was an American political scientist, novelist, and non-fiction writer, co-author of ''The Ugly American'' (1958), ''Fail-Safe'' (1962), and author of ''The 480'' (1965). Early life He was born in Sheldon, Iowa, the son of Marie Ellerbroek and Jack Dale Burdick. His father was a socialist who named his son after Eugene V. Debs. His family moved to Los Angeles, California when he was four years of age. One of his pastimes growing up was surfing. Education and early career He received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford University. After the United States entered World War II, he served in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1946, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander. Burdick was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the highest non-combat decoration awarded for heroism by the Navy, for rescuing four injured men by diving into a sea full of burning oil while under artillery fire. Thereafter, he p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western World
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.Western Civilization Our Tradition; James Kurth; accessed 30 August 2011 The Western world is also known as the Occident (from the Latin word ''occidēns'' "setting down, sunset, west") in contrast to the Eastern world known as the Orient (from the Latin word ''oriēns'' "origin, sunrise, east"). Following the Discovery of America in 1492, the West came to be known as the "world of business" and trade; and might also mean the Northern half of the North–South divide, the countries of the ''Global North'' (often equated with capitalist Developed country, developed countries). [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Third World
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First World", while the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and their allies represented the "Second World". This terminology provided a way of broadly categorizing the nations of the Earth into three groups based on political divisions. Strictly speaking, "Third World" was a political, rather than an economic, grouping. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term ''Third World'' has decreased in use. It is being replaced with terms such as developing countries, least developed countries or the Global South. The concept itself has become outdated as it no longer represents the current political or economic state of the world and as historically poor countries have transited different income stages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it the world's sixteenth-most populous country. Vietnam borders China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west. It shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital is Hanoi and its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City (commonly known as Saigon). Vietnam was inhabited by the Paleolithic age, with states established in the first millennium BC on the Red River Delta in modern-day northern Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam under Chinese rule from 111 BC, until the first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Dien Bien Phu
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (french: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu ; vi, Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ, ) was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the French Union's colonial French Far East Expeditionary Corps, Far East Expeditionary Corps and Việt Minh, Viet Minh Communism, communist Revolutionary, revolutionaries. The United States was officially not a party to the war, but it was secretly involved by providing financial and material aid to the French Union, which included CIA contracted American personnel participating in the battle. The People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union similarly provided vital support to the Viet Minh, including most of their artillery and ammunition. The French began an operation to insert, and support, their soldiers at Điện Biên Phủ, deep in the autonomous Tai Federation up in the hills northwest of Tonkin. The operation's purpose was to cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Indochina
French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, officially known as the Indochinese Union; vi, Liên bang Đông Dương, , lit. 'East Ocean Federation'; km, សហភាពឥណ្ឌូចិន; lo, ສະຫະພາບອິນໂດຈີນ and after 1947 as the Indochinese Federation,; vi, Liên đoàn Đông Dương; km, សហព័ន្ធឥណ្ឌូចិន; lo, ສະຫະພັນອິນດູຈີນ was a grouping of French colonial territories in Southeast Asia until its demise in 1954. It comprised Cambodia, Laos (from 1899), the Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan (from 1898 until 1945), and the Vietnamese regions of Tonkin (French protectorate), Tonkin in the north, Annam (French protectorate), Annam in the centre, and French Cochinchina, Cochinchin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sputnik Crisis
The Sputnik crisis was a period of public fear and anxiety in Western nations about the perceived technological gap between the United States and Soviet Union caused by the Soviets' launch of ''Sputnik 1'', the world's first artificial satellite. The crisis was a significant event in the Cold War that triggered the creation of NASA and the Space Race between the two superpowers. The satellite was launched on October 4, 1957, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This created a crisis reaction in national newspapers such as ''The New York Times'', which mentioned the satellite in 279 articles between October 6, 1957, and October 31, 1957 (more than 11 articles per day). Background In the early 1950s, Lockheed U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union provided intelligence that the US held the advantage in nuclear capability. However, an education gap was identified when studies conducted between 1955 and 1961 reported that the Soviet Union was training two to three times as many sci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for three weeks before its three silver-zinc batteries ran out, and continued in orbit for three months until aerodynamic drag caused it to fall back into the atmosphere on 4 January 1958. It was a polished metal sphere in diameter with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. Its radio signal was easily detectable by amateur radio operators, and the 65° orbital inclination made its flight path cover virtually the entire inhabited Earth. The satellite's unanticipated success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, part of the Cold War. The launch was the beginning of a new era of political, military, technological and scientific developments. The word ''sputnik'' is Russian for ''satellite'' w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Armageddon
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenario envisages large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of nuclear warfare, potentially causing the collapse of civilization and, in the worst case, extinction of humanity and/or termination of life on Earth. Besides the immediate destruction of cities by nuclear blasts, the potential aftermath of a nuclear war could involve firestorms, a nuclear winter, widespread radiation sickness from fallout, and/or the temporary (if not permanent) loss of much modern technology due to electromagnetic pulses. Some scientists, such as Alan Robock, have speculated that a thermonuclear war could result in the end of modern civilization on Earth, in part due to a long-lasting nuclear winter. In one model, the average temperature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrogen Bomb
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits. Characteristics of nuclear fusion reactions make possible the use of non-fissile depleted uranium as the weapon's main fuel, thus allowing more efficient use of scarce fissile material such as uranium-235 () or plutonium-239 (). The Ivy Mike, first full-scale thermonuclear test was carried out by the United States in 1952; the concept has since been employed by most of the world's List of states with nuclear weapons, nuclear powers in the design of their weapons. Modern fusion weapons consist essentially of two main components: a nuclear fission primary stage (fueled by or ) and a separate nuclear fusion secondary stage containing thermonuclear fuel: the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Arms Race
The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers. World War II The first nuclear weapon was created by the United States of America during the Second World War and was developed to be used against the Axis powers. Scientists of the Soviet Union were aware of the potential of nuclear weapons and had also been conducting research in the field. The Soviet Union was not informed officially of the Manhattan Project until Stalin was briefed at the Potsdam Conference on July 24, 1945, by U.S. President Harry S. Truman, eight days after the first successful test of a nuclear weapon. Despite their wartime military alliance, the United States and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banana Republics
In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighboring countries under economic exploitation by U.S. corporations, such as the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita Brands International). Typically, a banana republic has a society of extremely stratified social classes, usually a large impoverished working class and a ruling class plutocracy, composed of the business, political, and military elites. The ruling class controls the primary sector of the economy by way of the exploitation of labor; thus, the term ''banana republic'' is a pejorative descriptor for a servile oligarchy that abets and supports, for kickbacks, the exploitation of large-scale plantation agriculture, especially banana cultivation. A banana republic is a country with an economy of state capitalism, whereby the country is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
