The Atlantic Century: Four Generations of Extraordinary Diplomats who Forged America's Vital Alliance with Europe

by Kenneth Weisbrode

The Atlantic Century is the first major historical study to re-examine the American-European partnership with an emphasis on the personalities behind the policy. Our strong system of European alliances built during the last century did not happen serendipitously. It was carefully constructed and cemented by a network of diplomats and politicians, who imagined, built, and sustained a new international system. In their vision, America and Europe were part of a single cooperative transatlantic community— not rivals or one another’s periodic savior, as they had been during two world wars.Historian Kenneth Weisbrode reveals—for the first time, warts and all—the insider’s story of such well-known figures as Dean Acheson, W. Averell Harriman, and Henry Kissinger. It is the story of how and why the State Department’s Bureau of European Affairs (EUR)—the “mother bureau” as it was called, the nerve center of the Atlanticists—rose to become the U.S. government’s preeminent foreign policy office.

In today’s fractious world, The Atlantic Century is both timely and telling.

Genres: History, Politics, American History

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Kenneth Weisbrode is Assistant Professor of History at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.
His specialist research area is the history of diplomacy, with a focus on American and European history of the 20th century. Within this field, he is concerned with the relations of official institutions – principally foreign offices – to informal diplomatic networks in the Atlantic region. His dissertation at Harvard University led to the book "The Atlantic Century: Four Generations of Extraordinary Diplomats who Forged America's Vital Alliance with Europe" (2009).

Reviews

[Frank Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A highly detailed history of the US State Department's Bureau of European Affairs (EUR). The EUR served as the launching pad for many of our finest diplomats (David Bruce, Charles Bohlen, George Kennan, Helmut Sonnenfelt, etc.) but also was home to some, shall we say, ecclectic characters. Unless you are very interested in the mechanics of an institution like the EUR, you might not like this. For me, it filled in a lot of interesting details and gaps I had of US-European policy and diplomatic history.