Lexington Books
Pages: 178
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-7936-4357-5 • Hardback • March 2021 • $95.00 • (£73.00)
978-1-7936-4358-2 • eBook • March 2021 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
Alexander M. Shelby is associate professor at Indian River State College.
Chapter 1: The Historical Legacy
Chapter 2: Nasserism and American Cold War Policy
Chapter 3: The Syrian Dilemma & Nasser’s Yemeni Labyrinth, 1962-1963
Chapter 4: Phantom Governments and the Portents of War
Chapter 5: Out of the Void: Lyndon Johnson & MENA
Chapter 6: Palestine, Hydropolitics, and Lbj
Chapter 7: End of the Beginning of the American-Egyptian Relations in 1964
Chapter 8: Britain’s Cold War with Nasser East of Suez
Chapter 9: Conclusion
Understanding Lyndon Johnson’s foreign policy outside of Vietnam remains a challenge for historians. Alexander M. Shelby’s new book provides critical insight and an original perspective in assessing the Johnson approach to the Middle East, and in particular to Egypt’s leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Shelby’s thorough research and analysis provides a clear picture of the administration’s failure and the resulting June 1967 war. The book is a vital contribution to the scholarship on this era in the history of United States foreign relations.
— Thomas Schwartz, Vanderbilt University; author of Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam and Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography
In Lyndon Johnson and the Postwar Order in the Middle East, 1962–1967, Alexander M. Shelby provides yet another example of how the Johnson presidency was much more than the Vietnam War and the Great Society. Based on multilingual archival research, Shelby shows how Johnson crafted a nuanced and sophisticated strategy vis-à-vis the Middle East that continues to resonate today.
— Luke A. Nichter, Texas A&M University at Central Texas; author of The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War
Alexander Shelby’s well-written and thoroughly researched transnational history offers valuable new insights into the causes of the May–June 1967 crisis that led to the Six-Day War. Comparing the diplomacy of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson toward Egypt, Shelby shows that the former’s misreading of Egyptian policy and strategy helped push Cairo along the path to war. Diplomatic and military historians, as well as international relations scholars, will learn much from this book.
— Michael Creswell, Florida State University; author of A Question of Balance: How France and the United States Created Cold War Europe