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From Stalag 17 to The Manchurian Candidate, the American media have long been fascinated with stories of American prisoners of war. But few Americans are aware that enemy prisoners of war were incarcerated on our own soil during World War II. In The Barbed-Wire College Ron Robin tells the extraordinary story of the 380,000 German prisoners who filled camps from Rhode Island to Wisconsin, Missouri to New Jersey. Using personal narratives, camp newspapers, and military records, Robin re-creates in arresting detail the attempts of prison officials to mold the daily lives and minds of their prisoners. From 1943 onward, and in spite of the Geneva Convention, prisoners were subjected to an ambitious reeducation program designed to turn them into American-style democrats. Under the direction of the Pentagon, liberal arts professors entered over 500 camps nationwide. Deaf to the advice of their professional rivals, the behavioral scientists, these instructors pushed through a program of arts and humanities that stressed only the positive aspects of American society. Aided by German POW collaborators, American educators censored popular books and films in order to promote democratic humanism and downplay class and race issues, materialism, and wartime heroics. Red-baiting Pentagon officials added their contribution to the program, as well; by the war's end, the curriculum was more concerned with combating the appeals of communism than with eradicating the evils of National Socialism. The reeducation officials neglected to account for one factor: an entrenched German military subculture in the camps, complete with a rigid chain of command and a propensity for murdering "traitors." The result of their neglect was utter failure for the reeducation program. By telling the story of the program's rocky existence, however, Ron Robin shows how this intriguing chapter of military history was tied to two crucial episodes of twentieth- century American history: the battle over the future of American education and the McCarthy-era hysterics that awaited postwar America.

Education, Higher -- United States -- History -- 20th century. --- Education, Humanistic -- United States -- History -- 20th century. --- Prisoners of war -- Germany -- History -- 20th century. --- Prisoners of war -- United States -- History -- 20th century. --- Social sciences -- United States -- History -- 20th century. --- World War, 1939-1945 -- Education and the war. --- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, American. --- World War, 1939-1945 -- Psychological aspects. --- World War, 1939-1945 -- United States. --- World War, 1939-1945 --- Prisoners of war --- Education, Higher --- Social sciences --- Education, Humanistic --- History & Archaeology --- History - General --- Prisoners and prisons, American --- Education and the war --- Psychological aspects --- History --- Prisoners and prisons, American. --- Education and the war. --- Psychological aspects. --- Education, Liberal --- Humanistic education --- Liberal arts education --- Liberal education --- Behavioral sciences --- Human sciences --- Sciences, Social --- Social science --- Social studies --- European War, 1939-1945 --- Second World War, 1939-1945 --- World War 2, 1939-1945 --- World War II, 1939-1945 --- World War Two, 1939-1945 --- WW II (World War, 1939-1945) --- WWII (World War, 1939-1945) --- Education --- Classical education --- Civilization --- History, Modern --- Prisoners and prisons [American ] --- United States --- Germany --- 20th century --- Education [Higher ] --- Education [Humanistic ]

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At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government enlisted the aid of a select group of psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists to blueprint enemy behavior. Not only did these academics bring sophisticated concepts to what became a project of demonizing communist societies, but they influenced decision-making in the map rooms, prison camps, and battlefields of the Korean War and in Vietnam. With verve and insight, Ron Robin tells the intriguing story of the rise of behavioral scientists in government and how their potentially dangerous, "American" assumptions about human behavior would shape U.S. views of domestic disturbances and insurgencies in Third World countries for decades to come. Based at government-funded think tanks, the experts devised provocative solutions for key Cold War dilemmas, including psychological warfare projects, negotiation strategies during the Korean armistice, and morale studies in the Vietnam era. Robin examines factors that shaped the scientists' thinking and explores their psycho-cultural and rational choice explanations for enemy behavior. He reveals how the academics' intolerance for complexity ultimately reduced the nation's adversaries to borderline psychotics, ignored revolutionary social shifts in post-World War II Asia, and promoted the notion of a maniacal threat facing the United States. Putting the issue of scientific validity aside, Robin presents the first extensive analysis of the intellectual underpinnings of Cold War behavioral sciences in a book that will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in the era and its legacy.

Intellectuals --- Research institutes --- Cold War --- Institutes, Research --- Research centers --- Think tanks --- Universities and colleges --- Learned institutions and societies --- Intelligentsia --- Persons --- Social classes --- Specialists --- Political activity --- History --- Social aspects --- Asia --- United States --- Foreign relations --- Intellectual life --- Aftermath of World War II. --- Aggression. --- Anti-Americanism. --- Anti-capitalism. --- Anti-communism. --- Anti-individualism. --- Anti-intellectualism. --- Antipathy. --- Aphorism. --- Armistice. --- Authoritarianism. --- Behavioralism. --- Behavioural sciences. --- Bernard Brodie (military strategist). --- Carpet bombing. --- Clash of Civilizations. --- Cold War. --- Communism. --- Communist International. --- Communist propaganda. --- Conventional warfare. --- Counter-insurgency. --- Counter-revolutionary. --- Counter-terrorism. --- Creation myth. --- Criticism. --- Culture war. --- Decolonization. --- Defection. --- Demoralization (warfare). --- Deterrence theory. --- Disarmament. --- Disenchantment. --- Distrust. --- Espionage. --- Explanation. --- Foreign policy. --- Global catastrophic risk. --- Ideology. --- Incest. --- Indoctrination. --- Insurgency. --- Isolationism. --- Korean War. --- Korean conflict. --- Loss of China. --- Militarism. --- Militarization. --- Mind control. --- Modernization theory. --- Narcissism. --- National security. --- Nazi Germany. --- Nazism. --- North Korean defectors. --- Nuclear strategy. --- Nuclear warfare. --- On Aggression. --- On Thermonuclear War. --- Oppression. --- Persecution. --- Political apathy. --- Political censorship. --- Political commissar. --- Political science. --- Politics. --- Prisoner of war. --- Propaganda. --- Proxy war. --- Psychoanalysis. --- Psychological warfare. --- RAND Corporation. --- Racism. --- Radicalization. --- Reprisal. --- Result. --- Science. --- Scientism. --- Separatism. --- Social science. --- Society of the United States. --- Sociology. --- Sovietization. --- Strategic bombing. --- Subversion. --- The Authoritarian Personality. --- The Wehrmacht (documentary). --- Total war. --- Totalitarianism. --- Un-American. --- Viet Cong. --- War economy. --- War effort. --- War of ideas. --- War. --- Warfare. --- Wars of national liberation. --- Weapon of mass destruction. --- World War II. --- World communism.

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In the heady days of the Cold War, when the Bomb loomed large in the ruminations of Washington’s wise men, policy intellectuals flocked to the home of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter to discuss deterrence and doomsday. The Cold World They Made takes a fresh look at the original power couple of strategic studies. Seeking to unravel the complex tapestry of the Wohlstetters’ world and worldview, Ron Robin reveals fascinating insights into an unlikely husband-and-wife pair who, at the height of the most dangerous military standoff in history, gained access to the deepest corridors of American power. The author of such classic Cold War treatises as “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” Albert Wohlstetter is remembered for advocating an aggressive brinksmanship that stood in stark contrast with what he saw as weak and indecisive policies of Soviet containment. Yet Albert’s ideas built crucially on insights gleaned from his wife. Robin makes a strong case for the Wohlstetters as a team of intellectual equals, showing how Roberta’s scholarship was foundational to what became known as the Wohlstetter Doctrine. Together at RAND Corporation, Albert and Roberta crafted a mesmerizing vision of the Soviet threat, theorizing ways for the United States to emerge victorious in a thermonuclear exchange. Far from dwindling into irrelevance after the Cold War, the torch of the Wohlstetters’ intellectual legacy was kept alive by well-placed disciples in George W. Bush’s administration. Through their ideological heirs, the Wohlstetters’ signature combination of brilliance and hubris continues to shape American policies.

National security --- Cold War --- Homeland defense --- Homeland security --- Influence. --- Wohlstetter, Albert. --- Wohlstetter, Roberta. --- Morgan, Roberta, --- Wohlstetter, Albert J. --- United States --- Military policy.

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History