1946, THE YEAR OF INDECISION

A surprising account of America's curiously indecisive state at the pivot point of the postwar era.

In 1946, America had just exited the biggest war in modern history and was about to enter another of a kind no one had fought before. We think of this moment as the brilliant start of America Triumphant, in world politics and economics. But the reality is murkier - 1946 brought tension between industry and labor, political disunity, bad veteran morale, housing crises, inflation, the Soviets; all shadowed by an indecisiveness that would plague decisionmakers who would waffle between engagement and isolation, as the country itself pivoted between prosperity and retrenchment, through the rest of the century.

Weisbrode's book overturns the image of Truman as a can-do leader. 1946 in fact marked a nadir in his troubled presidency. Relations broke down with the Soviet Union, and almost did with the British. The US suffered shortages and strikes of a magnitude it had not seen in generations. In November 1946, the Democrats lost both houses of Congress. Churchill receded, Stalin and Kennan rose. The tension between fear and optimism expressed itself too in popular culture. Americans rejoiced in talent and creative energy, but a shift was brewing: Bing Crosby giving way to Bill Haley and BB King; John Wayne to Montgomery Clift. 1946 saw a burst of spirit in literature, music, film and art, and the arrival of the shadow of noir.

The issues and tensions we face today echo those of six decades ago. As we observe in this portrait of the era just before our own, as America learned, slowly and reluctantly, to act like a world power, it tried, and succeeded only partially, to master fear. Indecision, Weisbrode argues, is the leitmotif of American history.

Kenneth Weisbrode is a writer and historian, and the author of Churchill and the King and The Atlantic Century: Four Generations of Extraordinary Diplomats who Forged America's Vital Alliance with Europe. He lives in Turkey.