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Enduring Alliance

A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order

Timothy Sayle

$75.95   $68.41

Hardback

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English
Cornell University Press
15 April 2019
Born from necessity, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has always seemed on the verge of collapse. Even now, some seventy years after its inception, some consider its foundation uncertain and its structure weak. At this moment of incipient strategic crisis, Timothy A. Sayle offers a sweeping history of the most critical alliance in the post-World War II era.

In Enduring Alliance, Sayle recounts how the western European powers, along with the United States and Canada, developed a treaty to prevent encroachments by the Soviet Union and to serve as a first defense in any future military conflict. As the growing and unruly hodgepodge of countries, councils, commands, and committees inflated NATO during the Cold War, Sayle shows that the work of executive leaders, high-level diplomats, and institutional functionaries within NATO kept the alliance alive and strong in the face of changing administrations, various crises, and the flux of geopolitical maneuverings. Resilience and flexibility have been the true hallmarks of NATO.

As Enduring Alliance deftly shows, the history of NATO is organized around the balance of power, preponderant military forces, and plans for nuclear war. But it is also the history riven by generational change, the introduction of new approaches to conceiving international affairs, and the difficulty of diplomacy for democracies. As NATO celebrates its seventieth anniversary, the alliance once again faces challenges to its very existence even as it maintains its place firmly at the center of western hemisphere and global affairs.

By:  
Imprint:   Cornell University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 30mm
Weight:   907g
ISBN:   9781501735509
ISBN 10:   1501735500
Pages:   360
Publication Date:  
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Timothy Andrews Sayle is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto.

Reviews for Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order

Because of its ability to offer a clear, engaging, wide-ranging, and thought-provoking analysis, Enduring Alliance is quite simply the best overview of the alliance's history that scholars, students, and practitioners have now at their disposal. Sayle takes on an ambitious project but delivers a much-needed book that will no doubt become the reference point for any student interested in NATO and transatlantic relations. * H-Net * Sayle, a history professor at the University of Toronto, provides an in-depth analysis.... Through personal papers, cabinet memoranda, and other previously classifed documents retrieved from a dozen archives across North America and Europe, he contextualizes the personal perspectives of the alliance's political, military, and diplomatic leadership. Countering a widely held public perception, Sayle persuasively makes the point that the primary fear among these leaders was not the Red Army crossing Germany's Fulda Gap but rather the problem of democracy itself. * Literary Review of Canada * Drawing on extensive archival records, Sayle rehearses in detail the founding of NATO and its early operations * Foreign Affairs * This clearly-written and extensively researched book is a welcome addition to the scholarship on NATO. Sayle provides a strong case on why NATO has endured. The book would be appropriate for use in advanced courses in history and international relations where students already have a firm grasp of the Cold War. * Diplomatic History * Drawing on a dizzying array of published and archival sources, Sayle presents a masterful analysis of what the alliance has been, what bound its members together, and why the alliance has endured for seven decades and is likely to endure for the foreseeable future. * AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW * Sayle's book is a remarkably well-documented history of the NATO alliance. This is a worthwhile addition to the growing literature on NATO and a foundation for understanding its current challenges and prospects. * Choice * Timothy Sayle's Enduring Alliance is a timely and important book. Sayle successfully proves that most of the challenges that NATO faces today have existed throughout the history of the alliance. * Real Clear Defense *


  • Short-listed for Duke of Wellington Award for Military History 2020 (United States)

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