NSC 68 and the Political Economy of the Early Cold War

Curt Cardwell is an Assistant Professor of US Foreign Relations history at Drake University. He received a Ph.D. in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in 2006, and was recipient of the Harry S. Truman Library Dissertation Year Grant in 2003.

• Introduction; 1. NSC 68 and the problem of origins; 2. Multilateralism, the Soviet threat, and the origins of the Cold War; 3. Multilateralism, the dollar gap, and the origins of the Cold War; 4. The dollar gap and its discontents; 5. The British sterling-dollar crisis of 1949–50; 6. The origins and development of NSC 68; 7. The political economy of rearmament; Conclusion.

'Curt Cardwell has offered us an economic analysis of one of the more important documents in modern US history, NSC 68, which is sure to change our understanding of the imperatives that drove American leaders in the early Cold War years, especially the 'dollar gap' and the need to stimulate spending. It will provide an invaluable source for a revisionist/materialist interpretation of the Cold War.' Robert Buzzanco, author of Masters of War and Vietnam and the Transformation of American Life