Books by Sheldon Anderson

This book explores the Polish and East German communist parties' pursuit of conflicting national interests--rather than common socialist goals--during the height of the Cold War, and how this weakened the unity of the Soviet bloc.

This book explores the Polish and East German communist parties' pursuit of conflicting national interests--rather than common socialist goals--during the height of the Cold War, and how this weakened the unity of the Soviet bloc.

Stella Walsh was a Polish-American Olympic track and field icon of the 1930s. When Walsh was murdered years after her track career had ended, the autopsy brought her sex-and her legacy-into question. This first biography of Walsh reveals in detail her personal struggles, athletic triumphs, and tragic death.

This study examines the role of modern sports in constructing national identities and the way leaders have exploited sports to achieve domestic and foreign policy goals. The book focuses on the development of national sporting cultures in Great Britain and the United States, the particular processes by which the rest of Europe and the world adopted or rejected their games, and the impact of sports on domestic politics and foreign affairs. Teams competing in international sporting events provide people a shared national experience and a means to differentiate ';us' from ';them.' Particular attention is paid to the transnational influences on the construction of sporting communities, and why some areas resisted dominant sporting cultures while others adopted them and changed them to fit their particular political or societal needs. A recurrent theme of the book is that as much as they try, politicians have been frustrated in their attempts to achieve political ends through sport. The book provides a basis for understanding the political, economic, social, and diplomatic contexts in which these games were played, and to present issues that spur further discussion and research.

Condemned to Repeat It examines the historical myths that underwrote U.S. containment policy during the Cold War. Anderson argues that the historical record does not support the applicability of "lessons" learned from nineteenth-century great power diplomacy, peacemaking at the end of World War One, the Munich Agreement, and the Yalta Conference.