Clio Unbound Six Excursions into Contemporary History

History is not merely about events that have happened, but things that might have happened but for some reason or another failed to do so. The six essays in this book deal with situations that--with different outcomes--might find us living today in a somewhat different world. The longest deals with the one most painful for American readers--the Vietnam war. Another takes issue with a new, "revisionist" approach to a crucial moment in the Second World War. Two deal with Argentina, a country somewhat on the periphery of the Western world, but under certain circumstances has been fated to play a more central role in recent history. And one deals with the Suez crisis, an affair provoked by events in Egypt, but which drew in Britain, France, Israel and the United States, the consequences of which we are still living through. The long essay on U.S.-Nicaraguan relations is included to explore in some detail the way that a small country can manipulate a great power, or at any rate, immobilize it at a crucial turning point.

Mark Falcoff has taught or lectured at various American universities, at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, and at the NATO Defense College in Rome. His books include Small Countries, Large Issues; Cuba the Morning After; Modern Chile, A Critical History; as well as a novel, A Season in Utopia.