SCHELLING, Thomas C.

Arms and Influence.

"THE USUAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN DIPLOMACY AND FORCE IS NOT MERLY IN THE INSTRUMENTS, WORDS OR BULLETS, BUT IN THE RELATION BEWTWEEN ADVERSARIES": FIRST EDITION OF ARMS AND INFLUENCE: INSCRIBED BY NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING ECONOMIST THOMAS SCHELLING AND WITH AN AUTOGRAPHED LETTER SIGNED

New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966.

$4,800.00

In Stock Item Number: RRB-150026

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First edition of this "exemplary text on the interplay of national purpose and military force" (Book Week). Octavo, original red cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, "I'm pleased that John Rogers wants my signature on this book Tom Schelling." Also laid in is an autographed letter signed by Schelling, which reads, "Feb 24, '14 Dear John Rogers, I hope you can understand how much I appreciate your interest in these books. It's a joy and a thrill to put my signature on the title page. The whole purpose of such books is to get readers to understand them and enjoy them and even to treasure them. Warmest regards, Tom Schelling." Very good in a very good dust jacket.

In Arms and Influence, Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling argues that bargaining power, and the exploitation of this power, for good or evil, to preserve peace or to threaten war, is diplomacy—the diplomacy of violence. The author concentrates in this book on the way in which military capabilities—real or imagined—are used, skillfully or clumsily, as bargaining power. He sees the steps taken by the U.S. during the Berlin and Cuban crises as not merely preparations for engagement, but as signals to an enemy, with reports from the adversary's own military intelligence as our most important diplomatic communications. Even the bombing of North Vietnam, Mr. Schelling points out, is as much coercive as tactical, aimed at decisions as much as bridges. "An exemplary text on the interplay of national purpose and military force" (Book Week). In 2005, Schelling shared the Nobel Prize in Economics for “having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis.”