December 18, 2017
In this accessible work of political and economic history, Steil (The Battle of Bretton Woods), director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, comprehensively details the conception, planning, implementation, impact, and contemporary reverberations of the Marshall Plan. Steil places the massive and unprecedented European reconstruction program at the center of the emerging Cold War, delineating how it intertwined with many of the early crises of the conflict. The book makes clear that the Marshall Plan was more than simply an aid program; it effectively constituted the creation of a new Western-oriented political, economic, and military architecture in Western Europe. The plan inevitably drew the ire of the U.S.S.R., which attempted to undermine the project. Steil emphasizes the roles and personalities of leading U.S. statesmen driving the effort to enact the Marshall Plan and devotes considerable space to describing the domestic U.S. political scene and the “legislative drama” behind the plan’s political passage. The Marshall Plan achieved the goals of its creators, he concludes, and while it played a role in drawing the lines of the Cold War, the conflict itself was inevitable. Steil’s fresh perspective on a well-tilled subject will be appreciated by specialists for its wide-ranging analysis and welcomed by general readers for its engrossing style and accessibility. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.