Reviews for The most noble adventure : the Marshall plan and the time when America helped save Europe
Choice
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Behrman (Aspen Institute) has written an excellent, one-volume narrative of the Marshall Plan and the major players who advocated US intervention in post-WW II Europe. European nations were hurting economically and unstable politically, lacking the resources to purchase US-made goods. By 1947, the US had already poured billions of dollars into relief and recovery programs. However, Secretary of State George Marshall was committed to restoring Europe's sagging economy so that democratic institutions could thrive in the face of Soviet expansion. The author focuses on Marshall and his array of visionary subordinates, notably George Kennan, William L. Clayton, Paul Hoffman, and W. Averell Harriman. Behrman argues that these men understood quite well the importance of European recovery, creating a unified, self-sustaining Europe, and converting Germany into an ally. The author devotes considerable attention to the behind-the-scenes workings of Marshall and his ability to garner support for the plan from Congress. This reviewer is pleased with Behrman's impressive research and his ability to explain a very complex story in a cogent manner. Potential instructors should seriously consider this work, which demonstrates the importance of the US role in shaping the postwar world. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. B. Cook North Greenville University
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
A splendid narrative history of the Marshall Plan, perhaps the best foreign-policy idea America ever had. Feeling entitled because of its battlefield sacrifices and driven by a seemingly ascendant Marxist ideology, Stalin's expansionist Soviet Union saw prostrate Europe as especially vulnerable in the wake of World War II. To counter this threat, the United States conceived a comprehensive recovery program designed to revive the continent's working economies. Wisely, the plan required European initiative and cooperation to make the aid self-sustaining, with the U.S. acting only as a constructive partner to help restore social conditions where free institutions could flourish. Fatefully, Stalin refused to allow Russia or its Eastern European satellites to participate. Berhman (The Invisible People: How the US Has Slept Through the Global AIDS Pandemic, the Greatest Humanitarian Catastrophe of Our Time, 2004) follows the plan from its infancy in the U.S. State Department, where glittering figures such as the indispensable George Marshall, George Kennan, Robert Lovett and Dean Acheson presided, through its adolescence, where Michigan's Senator Vandenberg shepherded the European Recovery Program through Congress, to its full maturity in Europe, where W. Averell Harriman, as well as three men insufficiently remembered by history—Will Clayton, Richard Bissell and Paul Hoffman—insured its success. The Plan would have foundered had it not been for European statesmen—England's Ernest Bevin, France's Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman and Germany's Conrad Adenauer—whose leadership and vision not only saved their countries, but also planted the seeds for European integration leading to NATO, the European Common Market and today's EU. Astonishingly, billions of dollars and four years later, amidst Cold War episodes as unsettling as the Berlin airlift and the outbreak of the Korean War, the Plan had restored Western European confidence, political stability and economic health, and it secured the region as a U.S. partner for the next half century. Berhman's sure grasp of the geo-politics, his firm understanding of the Plan's details and his deft portrayal of the men who made it work combine to forge a remarkable story. Copyright ŠKirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Publishers Weekly
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The plan conceived by Secretary of State George Marshall to aid the recovery of a ravaged post-WWII Europe was perhaps the most generous act in American history and the world's most successful program of international cooperation and visionary statesmanship. Behrman's comprehensive study of the Marshall Plan could not arrive at a better time, when issues of nation building, postwar reconstruction and American obligations to friend and foe are the stuff of public debate. Behrman (The Invisible People) provides clarity, color and one of the greatest casts of characters in America's history, including Harry Truman, Dean Acheson and Marshall. Readers will also learn of unjustly overlooked men such as Will Clayton, Paul Hoffman and Arthur Vandenberg on the American side and of the statesmanship of Ernest Bevin, Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet and Stafford Cripps on the European. While lasting a mere four years, the $13-billion Marshall Plan rescued Europe from economic catastrophe and possible Communist domination while setting the stage for the continent's integration today. Even if the work lacks a strong enough authorial voice and distinctive style, it's unlikely Behrman's narrative force could be surpassed or that the discovery of further archives would materially alter the author's gripping tale. 16 pages of photos. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
A narrative account of the 1947-51 genesis and operation of the European Recovery Program, Behrman's history of how American assistance restored the economy of postwar Europe chronicles the activity and advocacy of officials who created the ERP. The secretary of state for whom it was popularly named, George C. Marshall, in fact delegated the design of what became the Marshall Plan, and his subordinates George Kennan, William Clayton, Paul Hoffman, W. Averell Harriman, and others accordingly receive the lion's share of Behrman's historical attention. Nevertheless, Marshall's prestige as the organizer of victory in World War II garnered the project requisite support in Congress; Behrman's telling of Marshall's sway on its debates and votes typifies the detail with which he tracks the entirety of the ERP, including its impact on the cold war. Today the term Marshall Plan symbolizes a desired government program to solve a problem. Behrman's work will reward readers thinking beyond slogans to understand the purposes and achievements of the original. With impressively thorough research, Behrman does exactly that.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2007 Booklist
