Economics of War

The consequences of the Vietnam War on the United States' economy is the subject of this work. Campagna provides a chronological study of the war's identifiable costs and benefits, beginning with the pre-war economy of the 1950s, through the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and culminating with Nixon's handling of the war and its aftermath. Both the short-term impact, including contemporary government and administration policies, and the long-term effects are examined, as Campagna describes the change in the basic economic structure that the war has been responsible for.

This is the first full study of an African country during World War II. Unusually, it provides both Africanist and imperialist perspectives. Using extensive archival and oral evidence, Jackson explores the social, economic, political, agricultural, and military histories of Botswana. He examines Botswana's military contribution to the war effort and the impact of the war on the African home front. The book focuses on events and personalities "on the ground" in Africa, and also considers Botswana's interaction with and impact upon events and personalities in distant imperial centers, such as Whitehall and the wartime British Army headquarters in the Middle East. The attitudes, aims, and actions of all levels of colonial society--British rulers, African chiefs, military officials, and ordinary African men and women--are likewise studied, thus producing a unique and "total" history of an African country at war.

The author masterfully blends intellectual, economic, and military history into a fascinating discussion of a great moral question for generations of Americans: Can some individuals rightly profit during wartime while other sacrifice their lives to protect the nation?