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A groundbreaking new history of how the Vietnam War thwarted U.S. liberal ambitions in the developing world and at home in the 1960sAt the start of the 1960s, John F. Kennedy and other American liberals expressed boundless optimism about the ability of the United States to promote democracy and development in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. With U.S. power, resources, and expertise, almost anything seemed possible in the countries of the Cold War’s “Third World”—developing, postcolonial nations unaligned with the United States or Soviet Union. Yet by the end of the decade, this vision lay in ruins. What happened? In The End of Ambition, Mark Atwood Lawrence offers a groundbreaking new history of America’s most consequential decade. He reveals how the Vietnam War, combined with dizzying social and political changes in the United States, led to a collapse of American liberal ambition in the Third World—and how this transformation was connected to shrinking aspirations back home in America.By the middle and late 1960s, democracy had given way to dictatorship in many Third World countries while poverty and inequality remained pervasive. As America’s costly war in Vietnam dragged on and as the Kennedy years gave way to the administrations of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, America became increasingly risk adverse and embraced a new policy of promoting mere stability in the Third World. Paying special attention to the U.S. relationships with Brazil, India, Iran, Indonesia, and southern Africa, The End of Ambition tells the story of this momentous change, and how international and U.S. events intertwined.The result is an original new perspective on a war that continues to haunt U.S. foreign policy today.

Liberalism --- Vietnam War, 1961-1975 --- History --- Influence. --- 1900-1999 --- United States --- United States --- Developing countries --- États-Unis --- Developing countries. --- United States. --- Foreign relations --- Foreign relations --- Foreign economic relations --- Relations extérieures --- Activism. --- Adviser. --- Allen Dulles. --- Ambiguity. --- Amendment. --- Anti-Americanism. --- Anti-communism. --- Appeasement. --- Assassination. --- Austerity. --- Authoritarianism. --- Blockade. --- Centrism. --- Civilian. --- Colonialism. --- Conditionality. --- Containment. --- Criticism. --- De facto. --- Dean Acheson. --- Dean Rusk. --- Decolonization. --- Defection. --- Dictatorship. --- Disgust. --- Dividend. --- Dixiecrat. --- Drought. --- Economic warfare. --- Embargo. --- Embarrassment. --- Failed state. --- Famine. --- Foreign policy. --- Formality. --- Grievance. --- Harris Wofford. --- Herman Talmadge. --- Honorary degree. --- Hostility. --- Humiliation. --- Imperialism. --- Indonesia. --- Insurgency. --- Jawaharlal Nehru. --- John F. Kennedy. --- John Kenneth Galbraith. --- Lame duck (politics). --- Latin America. --- Left-wing politics. --- Lyman Lemnitzer. --- Lyndon B. Johnson. --- Military dictatorship. --- Motion of no confidence. --- Narcissism. --- Neocolonialism. --- Non-Aligned Movement. --- Obstacle. --- Oppression. --- Ostracism. --- Perfidy. --- Prejudice. --- Quantity. --- Racism. --- Radicalism (historical). --- Rapprochement. --- Raw material. --- Reformism. --- Regime change. --- Resource depletion. --- Result. --- Rhodesia. --- Ruler. --- Scarcity. --- Self-consciousness. --- Separatism. --- Setback (architecture). --- Shortage. --- Skepticism. --- Slowdown. --- Southeast Asia. --- Soviet Union. --- Status quo. --- Subsidy. --- Subversion. --- Suharto. --- Sukarno. --- Task force. --- Third World. --- To the Contrary. --- Trade restriction. --- Triumvirate. --- U Thant. --- United States Department of State. --- United States. --- Unpopularity. --- W. Averell Harriman. --- Working group. --- Year. --- Zambia.