Congress and the Cold War

Robert David Johnson is a professor of history at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has published three books: The Peace Progressives and American Foreign Policy (1995); Ernest Gruening and the American Dissenting Tradition (1998); and 20 January 1961: The American Dream (1999). He is the editor of a fourth book: On Cultural Ground: Essays in International History (1994). Professor Johnson has published articles or essays in Diplomatic History, the Journal of Cold War Studies, Oxford Companion to American History, International History Review, and Political Science Quarterly, among others.

• 1. Constructing a bipartisan foreign policy; 2. Legislative power and the congressional right; 3. Redefining congressional power; 4. The consequences of Vietnam; 5. The transformation of Stuart Symington; 6. The new internationalists' congress; 7. The triumph of the armed services committee.

"For decades, historians and political scientists have ignored the pivotal role of Congress in shaping the politics of the Cold War. They will no longer be able to do so. By redefining congressional power, and revealing the numerous ways through which legislators pushed and pulled national defense policies, Johnson offers an exciting, well-researched, and first-rate piece of political history. This outstanding work should be on the bookshelves of everyone who is interested in the story of American politics since WWII." Julian Zelizer, Boston University and author of The American Congress: The Building of Democracy