American Crusades

This book argues that the foundations of America’s foreign policy are distinctly evangelical. It traces the work of evangelical and theologically conservative Americans who linked sacred and secular to secure power in American government, ultimately embedding religious principles in US foreign policy and shaping the ethos of the American people.

Here is the first in-depth analysis and comparison of U.S. policy in two seminal conflicts of our recent history: the Cold War and the Global War on Terrorism. Unlike previous publications, which deal with each conflict separately, Two American Crusades treats the two as a seamless web, from the passions of the medieval Crusades through the long twilight struggle of the Cold War to the campaign against al Qaeda and ISIS stemming from the rise of radical political Islam. National security and foreign policy professionals, members of the academic community, and general readers alike will benefit from the insights revealed in this book that exert a profound influence on current international affairs and America’s role. Two American Crusades also illustrates why a peace dividend continues to elude the United States. REVIEWS and WORDS OF PRAISE A history of American foreign policy that is sweeping in scope and penetrating in its analysis. Two American Crusades makes two original contributions. First, it surveys and compares America’s role in the Cold War and the Global War on Terrorism. Second, it argues that U.S. policy was driven by a crusading impulse to promote its democratic values around the world, incurring a high cost in blood, treasure, and moral authority. Two Crusades concludes by stating that the war on terrorism is veering away from the battlefield as America retrenches, re-evaluates its role in the world, and pursues a less aggressive foreign policy. --Benjamin B. Fischer, former Chief Historian of the Central Intelligence Agency A sweeping and valuable examination of the America’s two momentous struggles since World War II—the Cold War against the Soviet Union and the Global War on Terrorism against al Qaeda and other networks. Dr. Leighton provides a sobering account of these protracted conflicts and the legacies they left behind. --Seth G. Jones, Harold Brown Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and author of A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland. A meticulously researched and convincingly argued work that makes a major contribution to our understanding of the past 75 years of American history. Many have written about the Cold War and, separately, the Global War on Terrorism. Dr. Leighton takes an innovative approach and treats the two as a seamless continuum. --Igor Lukes, Professor of History and International Relations, Boston University, and author of On the Edge of the Cold War: American Diplomats and Spies in Postwar Prague. The demise of the Soviet Union dovetailed with the advent of Islamic terrorism. Dr. Leighton expertly describes these conflicts, provides experienced analyses about the past, and projects the difficulties ahead. --Richard R. Valcourt, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence Academe has long kept the Cold War and the Global War on Terrorism in separate silos. Dr. Leighton breaks new ground by revealing the nexus between the two crusades. She critiques a US strategy that defeated the Soviet army in Afghanistan but left the Islamist fighters there free to wage a jihad against the United States. The result was 9/11, which in turn triggered the Global War on Terrorism. --Dr. Leif Rosenberger, Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, former Chief Economist at CENTCOM and PACOM, and author of Economic Statecraft and US Foreign Policy: Reducing the Demand for Violence.

Herbert S. Parmet's Eisenhower and the American Crusades is a major assessment of the American presidency during the critical period of America at mid-century. The book follows the career of General Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1952, when he decided to leave his NATO command to campaign for the presidency, to his retirement at Gettysburg nearly nine years later. His entry into politics was well-timed. A mood of conservatism was sweeping the country; surveys indicated that the majority of Americans felt it was time for a change from two decades of executive control 'by those who had permitted events to get out of hand.'Parmet based his study of the Eisenhower years on massive research, conversations with leading figures of the era, and previously unreleased documents. This wealth of material has enabled him to provide answers to questions frequently asked about the thirty-fourth president: Was Eisenhower the kind, fatherly man millions grew up to love on their television or was this an image created by a shrewd politician who knew what the country needed in a trying time?Did he choose Richard Nixon as a running mate or was Nixon forced upon him by political necessities? Was the president intimidated by the appearance of power of Joseph McCarthy, and did the Army-McCarthy hearings influence Eisenhower's decision to involve the United States in Vietnam? Was Eisenhower concerned with the lack of progress in civil rights? Was he the right man for the right time in history or was he merely postponing the major crises of the 1960s?Parmet offers a convincing refutation of the idea of the Eisenhower years as being placid or boring. 'No years that contained McCarthy and McCarthyism, a war in Korea, constant fears of nuclear annihilation, and spreading racial violence, could be so described.' For Parmet, Eisenhower was a stabilizing force in a time of conflict. He may not have been a political genius, but he knew perhaps better than anyone else around him exactly what the people wanted and how they wanted it.

A compilation of facts, figures, maps, family trees, summaries of the major crusades and their historiography, the Routledge Companion to the Crusades spans a broad chronological range from the eleventh to the eighteenth century, and gives a chronological framework and context for modern research on the crusading movement. Not just a history of the Crusades, but an overview of the logistical, economic, social and biographical history, this is a core text for students of history and religious studies.

Predominantly Catholic for centuries, Latin America is still largely Catholic today, but the religious continuity in the region masks great changes that have taken place in the past five decades. In fact, it would be fair to say that Latin American Christianity has been transformed definitively in the years since the Second Vatican Council. Religious change has not been obvious because its transformation has not been the sudden and massive growth of a new religion, as in Africa and Asia. It has been rather a simultaneous revitalization and fragmentation that threatened, awakened, and ultimately brought to a greater maturity a dormant and parochial Christianity. New challenges from modernity, especially in the form of Protestantism and Marxism, ultimately brought forth new life. In The Rebirth of Latin American Christianity, Todd Hartch examines the changes that have swept across Latin America in the last fifty years, and situates them in the context of the growth of Christianity in the global South.

"American Crusade analyzes the attitudes of Christian communities in the United States toward the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I"--

A chronological collection of essays, America at the Ballot Box uses the history of presidential elections to illuminate both the fundamental character of American political democracy, and its evolution from the early Republic to the late twentieth century.

In the 11th Century, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the pope, rammpaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterrannean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the 200 years that followed, Islam & the West fought for domination over the Holy Land, clashing in a series of brutal wars.