In a period already rife with political and historical studies, the author (economics, American U.) chose to focus on the grass roots, analyzing economic documents produced by US officers
working in Berlin just after the Nazis’ collapse. He shows that in the war’s aftermath, American policymakers and Army officers had to control a lawless US military as money laundering, theft,
racial antagonisms, unregulated sex, high rates of venereal disease, and Soviet-American conflict threatened to undermine their authority in occupied Germany. Willoughby argues that it was the
creative reaction of American officials that helped launch both a foreign policy framework and a more inclusive, familial military establishment capable of consolidating and extending US power
during the Cold War. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
