The growth of the American nation and its development as an international super power is examined in a major new book by two Australian authors to be published later this year.
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet: A History of America, 1929-1989 is a major work of international collaborative research by The University of Queensland's Associate Professor Joe Siracusa and former UQ PhD now based at the University of Virginia, Assistant Professor David G. Coleman.
Dr Siracusa said You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet - the phrase is Ronald Reagan's after his re-election in 1984 -was a comprehensive history of America between Herbert Hoover and Ronald Reagan.
"It focuses on the office of the President, ?the ultimate source of action' in the American Republic, according to John F. Kennedy's felicitous expression," he said.
Dr Siracusa said the concise history examined American behaviour at home and abroad.
"Domestically, American society continued the process of industrialization and urbanization that had begun in the late 19th century. In 1929 the U.S. Federal government was still comparatively a small enterprise; challenges of the next six decades transformed it almost beyond belief, touching in one way or another almost every facet of American life," he said.
"Before the New Deal the majority of Americans did not expect the government to do anything for them; in fact they did not think that government could or should do anything for them.
"By the end of World War II, and against the great weight of tradition, Americans had finally become persuaded to look to Washington for help. It is in this sense, then, the New Deal was a political revolution.
"Every president since then, including Ronald Reagan has had to cope with its implications."
Dr Siracusa said the second theme of the text related to foreign affairs. He said the Government of the United States continued until the 1930s to be little more than that of a provincial confederation concerned more with delivering the mail, collecting customs and regulating immigration than with dealing with external threats posted by the emergence of totalitarianism.
However, economic and educational forces, and the sheer exigency of events, culminating in the nation's participation in World War II, gradually broke down the isolationist psychology and prepared most Americans for belated acceptance of the fact and responsibilities of a Great Power.
Dr Siracusa said the history was a true international collaboration. The authors are based in Australia and the U.S.; the editor is in Hawaii; the publisher is in New York, and the work and research were largely compiled via the Internet.
The University of Queensland's international reputation was well-known to the University of Virginia, he said.
"Some years ago UQ historian Professor Gordon Greenwood developed contacts in such places as Virginia and Duke University which burgeoned into a two-way street of exchanges of information. "
Another well-known Australian, former Prime Minister the late Sir Robert Menzies was a scholar in residence at the University of Virginia in 1966.
Their book, which has taken four years to complete, will appear in Praeger's Perspectives on the Twentieth Century series, edited by Professor Edward Beauchamp of the University of Hawaii.
Dr Siracusa, who is the author of 12 books, is a reader in history in UQ's School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics while Dr Coleman is attached to the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
Dr Coleman's award-winning thesis on Berlin and American national security during the Cold War during the Kennedy era brought him to the attention of Professor Philip Zelikow at Virginia whose own book on the Kennedy tapes became the basis of Australian director Roger Donaldson's movie Thirteen Days.
Media: Further information, Associate Professor Joe Siracusa, telephone 07 3365 6402.
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- New study traces complex origins of Cold War
- New book examines the Australian/American relationship
