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approaches of writing history
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The Cold War and post Cold War eras have brought with them many interesting aspects. New technologies initially meant for mass destruction filter down into the civilian world, making current lives easier. One example of this is the anti-lock braking systems of today’s cars. Originally designed to slow fighter-planes on landing without skidding, these systems make it safer for parents to take their children on vacation. One less noted advancement the eras brought is a considerable amount of exciting and forewarning fiction. While most authors chose to warn of nuclear and post nuclear holocaust, one significant author chose a different approach. Tom Clancy chose to write of conventional warfare and sometimes unconventional enemies. Between his novel Red Storm Rising and Debt of Honor, Tom Clancy makes evident the changing face of America’s enemies and threats, while staying true to issues that keep people interested in his books.
Published in 1986, Red Storm Rising is Tom Clancy’s second novel dealing with the former Soviet Union as a potential enemy. This was a time when America’s finest tank and infantry units went on exercises in Germany fully armed with the expectation that the Russians could attack them at any time. This was also a time when the Soviets did the same exercises with the same amount of live ammunition. Therefore there was reason enough to worry about potential conflicts. Deep within the ocean waters, submarines played similar cat and mouse games with other submarines and surface ships. However some of these submarines were more dangerous then a whole army because they were fully loaded with nuclear missles. These facts were well know to the American public and made Red Storm Rising all the more real when it combined land and ocean warfare in a way that captivated millions of readers.
The book begins as the Soviet Union’s ability to provide their own oil is cut off by a terrorist attack. Right away it is noted that two very frightening events have just happened. Terrorism, for one, is a major scare tactic that can and does strike fear into millions. This was demonstrated by two suspected attacks in the U.S. recently (Bombing of Flight 800 and the Olympic Park bombing). Secondly, the threat of losing petroleum resources is enough to drive governments to drastic measures. This fact is evident in the world’s participation in the 1991 Gulf War. The leaders of the Soviet Union decided that the only way to prevent the total collapse of their economy and country was to seize the oil rich Middle East.
Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking the Cold War: Dividing the World. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997. Publishing.
Isaacs J (2008). ‘Cold War: For Forty-five Years the World Held its Breath’. Published by Abacus, 2008.
Tzu, Mo. Against Offensive Warfare. Ed. Michael Austin. Reading the World: Ideas that Matter. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 254-255. Print.
The book ‘Clear and Present Danger’ is a novel written by Tom Clancy in 1989 and published in 1990 by Thorndike-Magna Publisher (Beetz 824). This book has one thousand one hundred and forty pages, with the latest edition published by Berkley Books having six hundred and eighty eight pages. This novel like most of Clancy’s writings relies on a basic formula of good versus evil where the United States is represented as a nation that is on the right side (Sharp 398). In this novel, a United States ambassador and the visiting chief of the Federal Investigation Bureau are assassinated by Colombian drug lords. This assassination prompts a mystifying underground response and a series of investigations of the actions by the United States and the Colombian drug lords by Jack Ryan, the main character in the book (Clancy 524). This paper is review of this literary work by Tom Clancy.
The political ideologies of the USA and of the Soviet Union were of profound significance in the development of the Cold War. Problems between the two power nations arose when America refused to accept the Soviet Union in the international community. The relationship between the USA and the Soviet Union was filled with mutual distrust and hostility. Many historians believe the cold war was “inevitable” between a democratic, capitalist nation and a communist Union. Winston Churchill called the cold war “The balance of terror” (1). Cold war anxieties began to build up with America and the Soviet Union advancing in the arms race for world dominance and supremacy. America feared the spread of Communism
Odd Arne Westad, Director of the Cold War Studies Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, explains how the Cold War “shaped the world we live in today — its politics, economics, and military affairs“ (Westad, The Global Cold War, 1). Furthermore, Westad continues, “ the globalization of the Cold War during the last century created foundations” for most of the historic conflicts we see today. The Cold War, asserts Westad, centers on how the Third World policies of the two twentieth-century superpowers — the United States and the Soviet Union — escalates to antipathy and conflict that in the end helped oust one world power while challenging the other. This supplies a universal understanding on the Cold War (Westad, The Global Cold War, 1).
After fighting along the United States against Nazi Germany in World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States soon became enemies, locked in the grip of the Cold War with the fear of a nuclear holocaust. Fear was a constant emotion throughout the entirety of the United States, no one knew exactly what was going to happen. The Soviet Union’s leader, Joseph Stalin, believed in communism, in fact the reader can concur that Americans were taught that communism was a bad thing, which worried most Americans. Textbooks should emphasize the Soviet society and economy versus the United States, as well as including the Great Terror, and military strength.
The end of the Cold War was one of the most unexpected and important events in geopolitics in the 20th century. The end of the Cold War can be defined as the end of the bipolar power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had existed since the end of the World War II. The conclusion of the Cold War can be attributed to Gorbachev’s series of liberalizations in the 1980s, which exposed the underlying economic problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc states that had developed in the 1960s and 70s and prevented the USSR from being able to compete with the US as a superpower. Nevertheless, Reagan’s policies of a renewed offensive against communism, Gorbachev’s rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine and the many nationalities
Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October" is a thriller that goes into the life of a Soviet submarine captain who lost his wife to a drunken Russian surgeon. This tragic case of negligence was ignored because the surgeon was the son of a communist party high official. The loss of his wife has caused Captain Marko Radius’s hatred of the corrupt U.S.S.R. for years. But now, Ramius has the chance to take action. Captain Ramius has been given command of the newest Soviet prototype sub, the Typhoon-class missile submarine. When the Americans are given photographs of it, they are extremely curious as to why it is so special. Jac...
Science fiction never ceases to amaze me as I take great enjoyment in exploring these creative universes. I have always had a great interest in military science fiction for its take on technological innovation and critical analysis. Military science fiction in general is very speculative about future of technology and warfare. The military science fiction genre also serves as a critique of contemporary politics as it deals with many of the same issues that go on today. This has made military science fiction one if the most well respected genres of science fiction for it ability to indirectly criticize modern society. My Integrated Project explores the relationship between how technology that has arisen from war has been some of the most innovative and why war has become an unshakeable aspect of human existence.
Tom Clancy, born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1947, was the son of a mail carrier and a credit employee. He graduated from Loyola College in Baltimore in 1969. After marrying Wanda Thomas, an insurance agency manager, Clancy became an insurance agent. Later, in 1973, he joined the O.F. Bowen Agency in Owings, Maryland. He became an owner there in 1980. Although he was very interested in the military, his poor eyesight made him ineligible for a military career. However, he kept his interest and researched various aspects of the armed forces and military technology. In the late 1970’s he formed ideas for several novels which were later written in the 1980’s. Clancy wrote in his spare time, while still working to raise a family. In 1984 the Naval Institute Press, a noncommercial publisher, published his first novel, The Hunt for Red October. This book was noticed by President Reagan, who praised the book and helped boost it to bestseller lists. Clancy continued to use plots based on political issues of the world.
When choosing an author for my paper, I chose international suspense because I am very interested in foreign relations and the technology of modern day war. I have read stories by Edgar Allen Poe, with suspense and vivid imagery, which reminded me of Clancy's work. I decided to choose Tom Clancy because of his talent to weave such realistic tales of international suspense. Clancy creates the scenes in his books with such detail, it makes the reader feel like he/she is there. My first choice for this paper was Dr. Suess, but because he has passed away, I had to keep looking. I knew very little information about my author before writing this paper. I had read two of his books, but had no real knowledge of his personal life or past history. Tom Clancy, a successful American author of international suspense, has captured his love of military and technology and profitably employed it in the books he writes.
Powaski, Ronald E. "The Cold war: The United States and the Soviet Union." In The Cold war: The United States and the Soviet Union, by Ronald E. Powaski, 303-304. Oxford University Press, 1997.
Lafeber, W. (2002), America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2000. 9th edn. New-York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Initially and primarily the US’s influence in the Middle East was to prevent a hostile power from gaining control over a vital resource. With the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict, the perception of oil as a strategic commodity surfaced. The Arab states cut off all petroleum deliveries to the United States and forming cutbacks to other countries. At the same time, the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced a rapid increase in the pr...