Invisible Hands: The American Century: 4. Rolling Thunder
About this episode
The episode explores how Walt Rostow's vision influenced America's military involvement in Vietnam and its transformation into a superpower.
March 1965 Vietnam. American fighter jets are taking off to bomb munitions depot in the North. A few days later, American ground troops arrive in the jungle. They would stay there for almost a decade, dropping more bombs on Vietnam than in all theatres of World War Two. How did this happen? The answer lies with someone who has evaded the glare of the spotlight. A liberal development theorist called Walt Rostow. A man who started off by advocating to help developing nations become capitalist and who ended up helping to unleash hell on an unsuspecting civilian population of a country on the other side of the world. This is a story of how idealism can lead to disaster. Of how America went from defender of freedom to bearer of destruction. David Dimbleby tells the story of how, in the middle of the 20th century, one country - America - became a superpower and shaped the world around it. It began with a vision. A vision born out of the ashes of World War Two. A vision of a world shaped not by war but by peace. This vision of America at the head of the free world came to be the defining idea at the center of the past 80 years of world politics. And yet now it is under threat. So how…
People in this episode
Host: David Dimbleby
Topics covered
- Vietnam War
- American history
- Cold War
- military intervention
- political theory
Keywords
- Vietnam
- Walt Rostow
- American Century
- military history
- Cold War
- superpower
- political idealism
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: America
Places: Vietnam
More episodes of The History Podcast
- The Hitler Diaries Scandal: Trailer
- Invisible Hands: The American Century: 6. America First!
- Invisible Hands: The American Century: 5. Wolfie
- Invisible Hands: The American Century: 3. Operation Ajax
- Invisible Hands: The American Century: 2. The Prophet
- Invisible Hands: The American Century: 1. Mr Nobody
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