The Windham World Affairs Council (WWAC) will host a talk by Paul Vincent, “Unwrapping the Marshall Plan,” Friday, May 15, at 7 p.m. at 118 Elliot.
Vincent, Professor Emeritus of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College, will examine how the United Sstates supported Europe through the Marshall Plan, a timely topic in light of recent U.S. interventions in Venezuela and Iran.
In 1948, the United States launched one of the most ambitious foreign policy programs in history: a massive economic aid package designed to rebuild Western Europe after World War II.
In striking contrast to the terms of the peace settlement after World War I, which exacted severe reparations from Germany, “the Marshall Plan provided sixteen nations with $13.2 billion, what amounts to roughly $135 billion today,” wrote organizers in a news release. The program ran for four years. “By most measures, it worked. Economies recovered, governments stabilized, and the feared spread of Soviet influence was contained,” they said.
But the Marshall Plan was “more than a simple act of generosity. It was a calculated bet, shaped by specific political pressures, economic interests, and ideas about what postwar Europe needed to survive.”
Vincent’s work addresses questions such as: Who designed it? Who benefited? Who was excluded? What did it aim to accomplish?
“It’s also a strikingly different kind of American intervention from what we’re used to seeing,” organizers said. As speaker John Feffer discussed at WWAC’s event in April, “lately those have consisted primarily of attempts at regime change and opportunities for self-enrichment.”
Paul Love, board member emeritus at WWAC, undertook to organize a talk on the Marshall Plan because it is so different from many other modern U.S. interventions: “It seemed to me that in the recent past, in this century, the U.S. has made several missteps in other countries, either in the regimes we’ve supported or in ones we’ve worked to change. I thought it would be important to look at an effort which supported what we believe in.”
This event is a chance to understand what the Marshall Plan actually was, how it worked, and why that history is worth knowing right now.
Vincent taught history and Holocaust studies at Keene State College for 32 years. He directed the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies, helped establish Keene State’s academic major in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and has been a fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and a Fulbright Scholar at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. He is the author of The Politics of Hunger and A Historical Dictionary of Germany’s Weimar Republic.
There is a suggested donation of $10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Seats can be reserved at bit.ly/865-vincent. Tickets will also be available at the door. For further information, visit windhamworldaffairscouncil.org.
This Town and Village item was submitted to The Commons.