Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid
Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid is the first comprehensive, critical analysis of the influence of economic historian Walt Whitman Rostow's theory of the "stages of economic growth" on U.S. foreign aid policy during the 1950s and 1960s. Kimber Charles Pearce analyzes Rostow's rhetorical approaches to producing and promoting his modernization theory to U.S. policymakers during the Cold War, as a template for development aid programs designed to contain Soviet expansionism around the world. Drawing upon Rostow's writings, public speeches, congressional testimony, personal interviews, and recently declassified documents, Pearce examines the economist's protracted campaign to convince policy makers to apply his theory of economic growth to the development aid initiatives of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. The analysis culminates in a case study of Rostow's influence on the planning, advocacy, and implementation of President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress to develop Latin America.
     Pearce demonstrates how Rostow's dual role as a leading architect of U.S. development aid programs and U.S. military escalation in South Vietnam made him a key figure, both in the history of developmental economic theory and in U.S. diplomacy during the Cold War. He argues that Rostow's role in economic diplomacy epitomized the social scientific turn toward argumentation and advocacy that occurred in the United States after World War II. Using methods of rhetorical analysis, Pearce offers new insights into how Rostovian theory was translated into political language by members of the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations, and how Rostow's themes of nation-building, fiscal interdependency, and macro-management of the global economy have become commonplaces of post-Cold War policy discourse. By illuminating relations of social scientific research, foreign policy advocacy, and political power in the context of U.S. economic diplomacy during the Cold War, Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid makes a significant contribution to the study of the rhetoric of economics and American diplomatic history.

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Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid
Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid is the first comprehensive, critical analysis of the influence of economic historian Walt Whitman Rostow's theory of the "stages of economic growth" on U.S. foreign aid policy during the 1950s and 1960s. Kimber Charles Pearce analyzes Rostow's rhetorical approaches to producing and promoting his modernization theory to U.S. policymakers during the Cold War, as a template for development aid programs designed to contain Soviet expansionism around the world. Drawing upon Rostow's writings, public speeches, congressional testimony, personal interviews, and recently declassified documents, Pearce examines the economist's protracted campaign to convince policy makers to apply his theory of economic growth to the development aid initiatives of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. The analysis culminates in a case study of Rostow's influence on the planning, advocacy, and implementation of President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress to develop Latin America.
     Pearce demonstrates how Rostow's dual role as a leading architect of U.S. development aid programs and U.S. military escalation in South Vietnam made him a key figure, both in the history of developmental economic theory and in U.S. diplomacy during the Cold War. He argues that Rostow's role in economic diplomacy epitomized the social scientific turn toward argumentation and advocacy that occurred in the United States after World War II. Using methods of rhetorical analysis, Pearce offers new insights into how Rostovian theory was translated into political language by members of the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations, and how Rostow's themes of nation-building, fiscal interdependency, and macro-management of the global economy have become commonplaces of post-Cold War policy discourse. By illuminating relations of social scientific research, foreign policy advocacy, and political power in the context of U.S. economic diplomacy during the Cold War, Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid makes a significant contribution to the study of the rhetoric of economics and American diplomatic history.

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Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid

Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid

by Kimber Charles Pearce
Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid

Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid

by Kimber Charles Pearce

Hardcover

$35.95 
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Overview

Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid is the first comprehensive, critical analysis of the influence of economic historian Walt Whitman Rostow's theory of the "stages of economic growth" on U.S. foreign aid policy during the 1950s and 1960s. Kimber Charles Pearce analyzes Rostow's rhetorical approaches to producing and promoting his modernization theory to U.S. policymakers during the Cold War, as a template for development aid programs designed to contain Soviet expansionism around the world. Drawing upon Rostow's writings, public speeches, congressional testimony, personal interviews, and recently declassified documents, Pearce examines the economist's protracted campaign to convince policy makers to apply his theory of economic growth to the development aid initiatives of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. The analysis culminates in a case study of Rostow's influence on the planning, advocacy, and implementation of President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress to develop Latin America.
     Pearce demonstrates how Rostow's dual role as a leading architect of U.S. development aid programs and U.S. military escalation in South Vietnam made him a key figure, both in the history of developmental economic theory and in U.S. diplomacy during the Cold War. He argues that Rostow's role in economic diplomacy epitomized the social scientific turn toward argumentation and advocacy that occurred in the United States after World War II. Using methods of rhetorical analysis, Pearce offers new insights into how Rostovian theory was translated into political language by members of the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations, and how Rostow's themes of nation-building, fiscal interdependency, and macro-management of the global economy have become commonplaces of post-Cold War policy discourse. By illuminating relations of social scientific research, foreign policy advocacy, and political power in the context of U.S. economic diplomacy during the Cold War, Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid makes a significant contribution to the study of the rhetoric of economics and American diplomatic history.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780870135781
Publisher: Michigan State University Press
Publication date: 07/31/2001
Series: Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Pages: 173
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Kimber Charles Pearce is Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Communication Certificate Program at Saint Anselm College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Rostow, the Policy Sciences, and Modernization Theory The Rhetoric of Inquiry and Critical Methodology1
Chapter 1.From the Academy to the White House: Rostow, Foreign Aid, and Social Scientific Advocacy11
1916-50: The Early Years
1951-59: The CENIS Years
1960-68: Rostow and the Rise and Fall of the Alliance for Progress
Chapter 2.Theory, Countertheory, and Rostow's Pursuit of Academic Novelty: The Process of Economic Growth29
The Process of Economic Growth in the Intellectual and Political Contexts of Cold War Modernization
Rostow contra Marx
Human Motivation in Rostovian Theory
Narrating the Propensities for Economic Growth: The Paradigm Case of the British Industrial Revolution
Chapter 3.Ideas in Action: A Proposal: Key to an Effective Foreign Policy49
The Princeton Inn Conference of 1954: Rhetorical Invention in Foreign Aid Policy
From the Princeton Inn Proposal to the Millikan-Rostow Thesis: Keeping Up the Fight
Modeling Democracy: The "Diffusion of Power" and Development Aid Policy
"Peaceful Revolution" and the Stages of Economic Growth
Chapter 4.Narrative Reason in Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto75
Responses to The Stages of Economic Growth
The Frame Narrative of The Stages of Economic Growth
Embedded Narratives in The Stages of Economic Growth: The Dynamics of Cold War Modernization
The Embedded Narrative of Human Motivation
The Embedded Narrative of the "Buddenbrooks" Analogy
Chapter 5.Advocating the Alliance for Progress: Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Peaceful Revolution87
Mobilizing the Alliance for Progress, 1961
Kennedy's Rhetorical Campaign for the Alliance: Sequence of Speeches, 1961
Inaugural Address, 20 January 1961
Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, 30 January 1961
Address at a White House Reception for Members of the Congress and for the Diplomatic Corps of the Latin American Republics, 13 March 1961
Special Message to the Congress on Foreign Aid, 22 March 1961
Chapter 6.From Punta Del Este and Back: The Alliance Fades103
The First Punta Del Este Meeting, 1961
Return to Punta Del Este: The Alliance during the Johnson Years
Conclusion
Conclusion117
Endnotes123
Bibliography149
Index165
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