Dr. Mark Atwood Lawrence, Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar and Director of the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, has released a new book titled The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era. In the book, he analyzes the evolution of U.S. foreign policy toward developing countries in the 1960s. Dr. Lawrence describes the Kennedy Administration’s boundless optimism in the early 1960s about the United States’ ability to promote democracy and development in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. He explains how the Vietnam War, combined with social and political changes in the United States, led to a collapse of American liberal ambition in these developing, postcolonial nations. By examining the United States’ relationships with Brazil, India, Iran, Indonesia, and southern Africa through the different administrations in the 1960s, Dr. Lawrence explains how America became increasingly risk-averse and embraced a new policy of promoting mere stability in the Third World. For more information or to purchase the book, please see here.