Acheson
Description
This is the authoritative biography of Dean Acheson, the most important and controversial secretary of state of the twentieth century. Drawing on Acheson family diaries and letters as well as revelations from Russian and Chinese archives, historian James Chace traces Acheson's remarkable life, from his days as a schoolboy at Groton and his carefree life at Yale to his work for President Franklin Roosevelt on international financial policy and his unique partnership with President Truman. It is an important and dramatic work of history chronicling the momentous decisions, events, and fascinating personalities of the most critical decades of American history.
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Content
PART ONE: A BOY'S LIFE
1. Et in Arcadia Ego
2. A World Apart
3. The Most Dashing of Yale Men
4. "This Wonderful Mechanism, the Brain"
PART TWO: THE IMPERATIVES OF ACTION
5. The Heroes
6. "The Regular Connection of Ideas"
7. "A Low Life but a Merry One"
S. "Forces Stronger Than Reason"
9. Most Unsordid Acts
10. The New Economic World Order
11. "The Good Life Is Very Hard"
PART THREE: FROM ALLIANCE TO COLD WAR
12. "An Armament Race of a Rather Desperate Nature"
13. No Grand Strategy
14. "A Graceful Way Out"
15. Risking War
16. "Clearer Than Truth"
17. Reveille in Mississippi
18. The Habit-Forming Drug of Public Life
PART FOUR: THE SECRETARY OF STATE
19. In Marshall's Chair
20. Letting the Dust Settle
21. "That Moment of Decision"
22. The German Question, the British Connection, and the French Solution
23. Putting Our Hand to the Plow
24. Situations of Strength
25. "An Entirely New War"
26. The Substitute for Victory
27. Entangling Alliances
28. Endgame
29. "That Candles May Be Brought"
PART FIVE: THE WARRIOR IN EXILE
30. Rejoining the Fray
31. "A Sort of Ancient Mariner"
32. "The Survival of States"
33. Contending with LBJ
34. Into the Quagmire
35. Seductions and Betrayals
Coda: "A Blade of Steel"
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
