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The Roots of Isolationism: a Case Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Peter G. Boyle
Peter G. Boyle
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Extract

Senator Arthur Vandenberg wrote of Pearl Harbor that ‘Isolationism for any realist ended on that day’. For two decades after Pearl Harbor this judgement was generally accepted both by statesmen and by scholars in America. Pre-World War II isolationism, it was felt, had been a policy of blindness which culminated in disaster. In the post-war period, it was generally agreed, America learned from the mistakes of her pre-war isolationism and helped to keep peace and defend her interests by pursuing an internationalist policy of the containment of Communism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , April 1972 , pp. 41 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

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