Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War (Paperback))

My rating:

add to my books

Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War (Paperback))

by Jonathan Nashel

2.75 · rating details · 4 ratings · 2 reviews

The man widely believed to have been the model for Alden Pyle in Graham Greene's The Quiet American, Edward G. Lansdale (1908-1987) was a Cold War celebrity. A former advertising executive turned undercover CIA agent, he was credited during the 1950s with almost single-handedly preventing a communist takeover of the Philippines and with helping to install Ngo Dinh Diem as ...moreThe man widely believed to have been the model for Alden Pyle in Graham Greene's The Quiet American, Edward G. Lansdale (1908-1987) was a Cold War celebrity. A former advertising executive turned undercover CIA agent, he was credited during the 1950s with almost single-handedly preventing a communist takeover of the Philippines and with helping to install Ngo Dinh Diem as president of the American-backed government of South Vietnam. Adding to his notoriety, during the Kennedy administration Lansdale was put in charge of Operation Mongoose, the covert plot to overthrow the government of Cuba's Fidel Castro by assassination or other means. In this book, Jonathan Nashel reexamines Lansdale's role as an agent of American Cold War foreign policy and takes into account both his actual activities and the myths that grew to surround him. In contrast to previous portraits, which tend to depict Lansdale either as the incarnation of U.S. imperialist ambitions or as a farsighted patriot dedicated to the spread of democracy abroad, Nashel offers a more complex and nuanced interpretation. At times we see Lansdale as the arrogant "ugly American," full of confidence that he has every right to make the world in his own image and utterly blind to his own cultural condescension. This is the Lansdale who would use any conceivable gimmick to serve U.S. aims, from rigging elections to sugaring communist gas tanks. Elsewhere, however, he seems genuinely respectful of the cultures he encounters, open to differences and new possibilities, and willing to tailor American interests to Third World needs. Rather than attempting to reconcile these apparently contradictory images of Lansdale, Nashel explores the waysin which they reflected a broader tension within the culture of Cold War America. The result is less a conventional biography than an analysis of the world in which Lansdale operated and the particular historical forces that shaped him-- from the imperatives of anticommunist ideology and the assumptions of modernization theory to the techniques of advertising and the insights of anthropology.(less)

Paperback, 278 pages

Published November 30th 2005 by University of Massachusetts Press

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-9 of 9)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Aug 04, 2009

Jesse rated it

· review of another edition

Interesting, but also frustrating. Lansdale was the model for the "ugly American," which was actually a term of approbation in the 1958 bestseller--meant foreign-aid types who got out and got their hands dirty as opposed to sitting around the compound and complaining about the natives. But he wasn't the model for Alden Pyle, the "quiet American" in Graham Greene's novel. He was, if anything, a typical early-CIA type: an adman who used persuasion, both direct and indirect, to ...moreInteresting, but also frustrating. Lansdale was the model for the "ugly American," which was actually a term of approbation in the 1958 bestseller--meant foreign-aid types who got out and got their hands dirty as opposed to sitting around the compound and complaining about the natives. But he wasn't the model for Alden Pyle, the "quiet American" in Graham Greene's novel. He was, if anything, a typical early-CIA type: an adman who used persuasion, both direct and indirect, to sell Filipinos (successfully), South Vietnamese (sort of successfully, if one considers the existence of South Vietnam something to celebrate), and Cubans (not at all successfully) on the greatness of the American way. He was a folklorist and madman (he originated the Christ-opposes-Fidel idea that was supposed to overthrow him, among many other zany ideas) who also spent a whole lot of time doing nobody-knows-what in various countries. (Cambodian President Sihanouk made several spy thrillers where he defeated a character named "Lansdale," believing Lansdale had been behind, or connected with--prepositions are important, but hard to choose, here--several coup attempts.) So he was a fascinating guy, and this new diplomatic history (old diplomatic history plus cultural history and bits of lit crit, which I often enjoy) strains mightily to figure out what it all means. But so much of Lansdale still seems to be under wraps that we get three chapters that are more or less the same, silly connections of Lansdale's historical understandings to those of the 1950s consensus historians (as if; I mean, surely he went East with pretty much the same unthinking sense that the American way was the best way that most other agents of empire did, which makes him neither more nor less culpable than they are), and finally an attempt to both minimize Lansdale's inflated rep (Nashel keeps asserting that he did not, could not, have done all that he and his willing conspirators in the press claimed or hinted at) and maximize it (a closing section considers how badly things are going in the Philippines now, which is apparently Lansdale's fault). A frustrating book, all in all, not least given the amount of time the author appears to have spent fighting through all of this material.(less)

· see review

Feb 23, 2010

Eleanore rated it

· review of another edition

Awful. A "cultural approach" cannot be a substitute for a basic understanding of the institutional history of US government and its departments. Despite having access to Lansdale's papers, this book is misleading and manages to make an interesting subject fairly inane.

· see review

Feb 05, 2012

Scott Bailey marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Jan 17, 2012

Jose Aranzamendez marked it as to-read

Jul 03, 2011

Tom marked it as to-read

Jul 07, 2010

Hunter added it

Mar 28, 2010

Peter rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 1945-1979, 20th-century, american-history, american-writers, biography, cultural-history, cold-war, guerrilla-warfare, history, postwar-consensus-liberalism, vietnam-war, 2000s

Feb 11, 2010

Liam marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: wishlist

Nov 18, 2008

Gina rated it

· review of another edition

2000s

1 shelf

vietnam-war

1 shelf

postwar-consensus...

1 shelf

history

1 shelf

guerrilla-warfare

1 shelf

cold-war

1 shelf

cultural-history

1 shelf

biography

1 shelf

american-writers

1 shelf

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Pin It

Trivia About Edward Lansdale's...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War
avg rating	preview: Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War Goodreads rating: 2.75 (4 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102120.Edward_Lansdale_s_Cold_War_Culture_Politics_and_the_Cold_War?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171484470m/102120.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102120.Edward_Lansdale_s_Cold_War_Culture_Politics_and_the_Cold_War?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War by Jonathan Nashel[/url]

Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War (Paperback))

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (1)

Popular Shelves

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About Edward Lansdale's...

Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War (Paperback))

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

combine Other Editions (1)

Popular Shelves

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About Edward Lansdale's...

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (1)