The Forgotten Debate - by Dane J Cash (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A deeply researched political history that finds a new origin story to today's deeply entrenched partisanship. Cash reminds us that the "forgotten war" in Korea was also the occasion for the "forgotten debate" between liberals and conservatives.

When it comes to the origins of today's sharp partisan divide, most have pointed to the usual suspects--Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution in 1994, Watergate, and the Vietnam War. In The Forgotten Debate, Dane J. Cash suggests that we need to look further back in history. He argues that we can trace the roots of the current ideological divide in America to the period of the Korean War.

The 1950s were hardly a time of "liberal consensus," as Cash maintains that liberals themselves were quite divided about the proper course of action in Korea and in the Cold War more generally. Left liberals supported containment policy and its manifestation as a limited war in Korea, whereas hawkish liberals favored a much more aggressive strategy, particularly one vis-à-vis Communist China, which was largely indistinguishable from the position taken by avowed conservatives. The seeds of neoconservatism were thus sown much earlier than is typically appreciated. Furthermore, conservative voices were galvanized by what they perceived to be American timidity (and ultimately failure) in prosecuting the Korean War. Their frustrations about Korea and American weakness toward China led them to develop a unilateralist, "America First" foreign policy, which coalesced into a coherent movement several years prior to the founding of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s National Review in 1954--generally considered to be the genesis of modern conservatism.

Drawing on a range of opinion journals, The Forgotten Debate shows that conflict, rather than consensus, marked elite attitudes to the Korean War. Cash thus reminds us that the divisions in society today have a much longer history than we typically realize. The Korean War is often ignored and overshadowed by later developments, like the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, but many of our current ideological positions were forged in that forgotten period.

Review Quotes

"Elegantly written, and based on an impressive body of research, Dane Cash persuasively shows not only how many of the divisions of the early 1950s have been unjustly forgotten, but also how the debates of this period foreshadow America's growing polarization. This is an important book for anyone interested in either the Korean War or contemporary politics."--Steven Casey, author of The War Beat, Pacific: The American Media at War against Japan

"A tremendous work, marked as much by its thorough research as its fascinating story. Cash's book reminds us that the past is rarely as neat as we would like to remember, and offers conclusions that resonate in our current political moment."--Mitchell Lerner, author of The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy

"Through an original and detailed examination of six opinion journals, The Forgotten Debate sheds new light on the political divisions within the United States over the Korean War. Undermining the idea of a Cold War liberal consensus, Dane Cash convincingly argues that liberal voices were often in conflict, and that hawkish liberals frequently aligned with conservatives in a way that foreshadowed the development of the neoconservative movement."--Andrew Johnstone, author of Spinning the World: The Public Relations Industry and American Foreign Relations

"As Dane Cash shows with close attention to major figures, important publications, and central concepts and terms, from left liberals to hawkish liberals to conservatives of various types, elite and national opinion debates over the fighting of the Korean War helped shape the US's strategy not just for that conflict but for the Cold War itself. These 'Great Debates' are little known, but they shouldn't be--and are eerily similar to some of the most pressing issues today."--Christopher McKnight Nichols, author of Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age