The Visionaries: Bretton Woods, the Marshall Plan, and the Making of the Post-World War II Order

From the leading historian of World War II, an impassioned account of the United States' unprecedented and far-sighted postwar decision to aid its enemies and allies alike with the Marshall Plan, leading to eight decades of peace and prosperity in the West that would unravel in an "America First" environment.On March 12, 1947, less than two years after the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman delivered a historic speech to Congress, in response to a European crisis: Greece was facing economic collapse and Soviet expansion, and Truman felt that the United States should provide financial aid to a free people resisting attempts to subjugate them, which he asserted would promote "economic stability and orderly political processes."The United States was the richest country in the world, but Truman believed that shared prosperity among democracies would make them more politically stable and increase the likelihood of long-term peace. His historic proposal for a US rescue of Greece led to the unprecedented and radical Marshall Plan: the decision to provide aid not only to the United States.Allies and, for the first time in history, our former enemies, as they rebuilt themselves from the ruins of a disastrous war. Indeed, thanks to this assistance, Germany and Japan became economic superpowers and, along with most of Europe, staunch allies of the United States, and nearly eighty years later, the benefits of this extraordinary decision are still being felt.James Holland's deep knowledge of World War II gives him a unique insight and deep appreciation of its historical ramifications. In a concise and engaging narrative style, Visionaries  * chronicles the introduction of the Marshall Plan, from Franklin Roosevelt's landmark "Four Freedoms" speech and "Good Neighbor Policy" toward Central and South America, to the historic Bretton Woods Conference of July 1944, which established the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, two essential pillars of global stability.But it was Truman who pushed for the Marshall Plan, which launched, through economic aid, the fastest period of growth in European history in 1948. Its low-tariff environment encouraged trade, and brought prosperity and lasting peace to much of Europe and the Americas, including the United States. However, Holland warns that we in the West have become complacent, less willing to protect the freedoms made possible by extended prosperity; He explains the far-sighted decisions taken in the aftermath of the warSecond Worldism stands in stark contrast to our utilitarian approach to the world today.