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'Transitions to Democracy'

posted 18 years ago by dranonyme
4 replies | jump to latest

When Fowler (Caine) first meets Pyle (Fraser) in the hotel cafe, the latter is reding a book that looks on my modest television screen to be "Transitions to Democracy." I've looked in Amazon and could not easily find the reference, though there is an abundance of later-published sources with variations of this title. The way it is conspicuously flouted in this scene leads me to believe that this is a seminal source in anticipation of the United States's ideological embrace of the conflict in the 1950's, before our "covert" involvement became "overt." Does anybody know this source?

[–] Nephilim-6 18 years ago

I thought it was: Dangers To Democracy
I remember Pyle saying that to Fowler.

Did you ever notice that people who believe in creationism look realy un-evolved? - Bill Hicks

[–] NuYorkie 18 years ago

In the book it was York Harding's "The Challenge to Democracy". Pyle had a bookcase filled with complete works of YH: " The Role of the West" plus "The Advance of Red China".

[–] MarieGabrielle 10 years ago

^This.

In Grahame Greene's novel York Harding represents a fictional American author, but represents the same arrogant expansionism and "imposing democracy" theme, as we have seen over and over again.

[–] Tchoutoye 10 years ago

It's a fictional book and writer. But I read somewhere that the writer was loosely based on George F. Kennan, former Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. He was core member of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men", which was responsible for devising the Marshall Plan. He is considered the ideological father of the Cold War strategy of containment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan