New Books in Diplomatic History
Episodes
Guy Laron, “The Six-Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East” (Yale UP, 2017)
16 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The title of Guy Laron’s The Six-Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East (Yale University Press, 2017) says it all. As Laron notes in this intervi...
Robert Dallek, “Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life” (Viking, 2017)
12 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Although commonly regarded as one of the three or four greatest Presidents and certainly the greatest of the 20th century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt h...
Sarah Snyder, “From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed Foreign Policy”
03 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Human rights as a concern in U.S. foreign policy and international politics has been well-documented, particularly in studies of the Carter Administra...
Michael Belgrave, “Dancing with the King: The Rise and Fall of the King Country, 1864–1885” (Auckland UP, 2017)
29 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Dancing with the King: The Rise and Fall of the King Country, 1864–1885 (Auckland University Press, 2017), Michael Belgrave, Pro...
Odd Arne Westad, “The Cold War: A World History” (Basic Books, 2017)
13 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There have been many histories and treatments of the Cold War, few however have the breath, range and definitiveness of Harvard Professor Odd Arne Wes...
Matthew Karp, “This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at The Helm of American Foreign Policy” (Harvard UP, 2016)
14 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Most people know that slavery was foundational to the economic development of the United States in the antebellum period. Fewer people are aware that ...
Nancy Mitchell, “Jimmy Carter in Africa: Race and the Cold War” (Stanford UP, 2016)
09 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today we talked with Nancy Mitchell about her book Jimmy Carter in Africa: Race and the Cold War, published by Stanford University Press in 2016 as pa...
Jessica Elkind, “Aid Under Fire: Nation Building and the Vietnam War” (U Kentucky Press, 2016)
09 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As any scholar of the Vietnam War can tell you, the field doesn’t lack for study: it’s one of the most-studied fields for both military and diplom...
Kathlene Baldanza, “Ming China and Vietnam: Negotiating Borders in Early Modern Asia” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
07 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Ming China and Vietnam: Negotiating Borders in Early Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Kathlene Baldanza explores the complex diploma...
Colin G. Calloway, “The Indian World of George Washington” (Oxford UP, 2018)
07 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this sweeping new biography, Colin G. Calloway, John Kimball Jr. 1943 Professor of History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, uses t...
Ji-Young Lee, “China’s Hegemony: Four Hundred Years of East Asian Domination” (Columbia UP, 2017)
03 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ji-Young Lee’s book investigates the changing nature of tribute relations during the Ming and High Qing between a dominant China and its less powerf...
Harlan Ullman, “Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Every War It Starts” (Naval Institute Press, 2017)
02 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Since 1945, the United States has lost every war it started. Why? A Vietnam War veteran, Tufts University Ph. D. and intimate of many of the leading f...
Max Boot, “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam” (Liveright, 2018)
13 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Counterinsurgency doctrine, the Vietnam War, and the vagaries of politics all come together in Max Boot‘s latest work, The Road Not Taken: Edward La...
Daniel Bessner, “Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual” (Cornell UP, 2018)
11 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Bessner’s Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual (Cornell University Press, 2018) provides a fascinating ac...
David A. Hollinger, “Protestants Abroad: How Missionaries Tried to Change the World and Changed America” (Princeton UP, 2017).
06 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
David A. Hollinger‘s Protestants Abroad: How Missionaries Tried to Change the World and Changed America (Princeton University Press, 2017) offers a ...
Katrin Paehler, “The Third Reich’s Intelligence Service: The Career of Walter Schellenberg” (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
06 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Who was the spymaster of the Third Reich? How did Nazi ideology influence intelligence collection? Katrin Paehler answers these questions with the fir...
William R. Polk, “Crusade and Jihad: The Thousand-Year War Between the Muslim World and the Global North” (Yale UP, 2018)
06 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Crusade and Jihad: The Thousand-Year War Between the Muslim World and the Global North (Yale University Press, 2018) is an ambitious attempt to cover,...
Antony G. Hopkins, “American Empire: A Global History” (Princeton UP, 2018)
19 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In an expansive, engrossing, voluminously in depth analysis of the subject, Professor A. G. Hopkins, Professor Emeritus of Commonwealth History at the...
David Narrett, “Adventurism and Empire” (UNC Press, 2015)
23 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Adventurism and Empire: The Struggle for Mastery in the Louisiana-Florida Borderlands, 1762-1803 (University of North Carolina Press,...
Brian Jenkins, “Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Age of Nationalism and War” (McGill-Queens UP, 2014)
08 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Described upon his death in 1887 as the ideal diplomatist, Richard Lyons served Great Britain in a variety of roles over the course of a long and dist...
David Stevenson, “1917: War, Peace, and Revolution” (Oxford UP, 2018)
22 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 1917: War, Peace, and Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2018), David Stevenson examines a pivotal chapter of the First World War. Two and a half...
Hendrik Meijer, “Arthur Vandenberg: The Man in the Middle of the American Century” (U Chicago Press, 2017)
18 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As a United States senator in the 1930s and 1940s, Arthur Vandenberg was one of the leading Republican voices shaping the nation’s foreign policy. T...
Stephen G. Craft, “American Justice in Taiwan: The 1957 Riots and Cold War Foreign Policy” (Kentucky UP, 2017)
18 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On May 23, 1957, US Army Sergeant Robert Reynolds was acquitted of murdering Chinese officer Liu Ziran in Taiwan. Reynolds did not deny shooting Liu b...
Herman Salton, “Dangerous Diplomacy: Bureaucracy, Power Politics and the Role of the UN Secretariat in Rwanda” (Oxford UP, 2017)
08 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I was in graduate school during Bosnia and Rwanda. Like everyone else, I watched the video footage and journalistic accounts that came from these two ...
Stewart Patrick, “The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World” (Brookings Institution Press, 2017)
08 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World (Brookings Institution Press, 2017) is an important and in depth study of American interactio...
David Head, “Privateers of the Americas: Spanish American Privateering from the United States in the Early Republic” (U. Georgia Press, 2015)
12 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When the nations of Latin America fought for their independence in the early 19th century, they commissioned privateers stationed in the United States...
Ricardo D. Salvatore, “Disciplinary Conquest: U.S. Scholars in South America, 1900-1945 (Duke UP, 2016)
30 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Ricardo D. Salvatore‘s new book, Disciplinary Conquest: U.S. Scholars in South America, 1900-1945 (Duke University Press, 2016) offers an alternativ...
Harry Bennett, “The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity, 1919-1922: Naval and Foreign Policy under Lloyd George” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016)
27 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Great Britain’s victory in the First World War brought with it the competing challenges of defending an expanded empire while reducing military expe...
Dalia Muller, “Cuban Emigres and Independence in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf World (UNC Press, 2017)
23 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Cuba and Mexico have a long history of exchange and interaction. Cubans traveled to Mexico to work, engage in politics from afar, or expand businesses...
Julie Gottlieb, “‘Guilty Women’: Foreign Policy and Appeasement in Inter-War Britain” (Palgrave Macmilan, 2015)
18 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Historically, foreign policy has been seen as a sphere shaped and determined by the concerns of men alone. In ‘Guilty Women’: Foreign Policy and A...
Mark P. Bradley, “The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
17 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of what has come to be known in American political spee...
Daniel Immerwahr, “Thinking Small: The United States and the Lure of Community Development” (Harvard UP, 2015)
17 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Modernization dominates development’s historiography. Historians characterize moments in development’s history–from the Tennessee Valley Authori...
Julie Wilhelmsen “Russia’s Securitization of Chechnya: How War Became Acceptable (Routledge, 2017)
14 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In Russia’s Securitization of Chechnya: How War Became Acceptable (Routledge, 2017), a study of the transformations of the image of Chechnya in the ...
Victor Taki, “Tsar and Sultan: Russian Encounters with the Ottoman Empire” (I.B. Taurus, 2016)
14 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Victor Taki’s Tsar and Sultan: Russian Encounters with the Ottoman Empire (I.B. Taurus, 2016) invites the reader to explore the captivating story of...
Larrie Ferreiro, “Brothers at Arms: Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It” (Knopf, 2016)
02 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Was the War for American Independence really about American independence? It depends on who you ask. In his new book, Brothers at Arms: American Indep...
William Blum, “America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy – the Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else” (Zed Books, 2013)
12 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Since World War II, the United States has repeatedly posited itself as a defender of democracy, using its military might to promote freedom abroad eve...
Lincoln A. Mitchell, “The Democracy Promotion Paradox” (Brookings Institution Press, 2015)
13 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In book his new book The Democracy Promotion Paradox (Brookings Institution Press, 2015), Lincoln A. Mitchell (Political Correspondent for the New Yor...
Ingrid Carlberg, “Raoul Wallenberg: The Biography” (MacLehose Press, 2016)
04 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a person? What makes an act heroic? And what determines a person’s fate? These are the questions driving the narrative in Ingrid Carlberg...
John Bew, “Realpolitik: A History” (Oxford UP, 2015)
30 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Since its coinage in mid-19th century Germany, Realpolitik has proven both elusive and protean. To some, it represents the best approach to meaningful...
Michael Goebel, “Anti-Imperial Metropolis: Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third World Nationalism” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
28 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Goebel‘s Anti-Imperial Metropolis: Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third World Nationalism (Cambridge University Press, 2015) thinks globall...
Michael L. Oberg, “Peacemakers: The Iroquois, the United States, and the Treaty of Canandaigua, 1794” (Oxford UP, 2015)
10 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
On November 11, 2015, leaders and citizens of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy–Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and Tuscaror...
Vicken Cheterian, "Open Wounds: Armenians, Turks, and a Century of Genocide" (Oxford UP, 2015)
29 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The assassination of the Armenian-Turkish activist Hrant Dink in 2007 raised uncomfortable questions about a historical tragedy that the leaders of th...
Clare Croft, “Dancers as Diplomats: American Choreography in Cultural Exchange” (Oxford UP, 2015)
27 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What’s missing from our understanding of the role of dancers in the context of American Cultural Diplomacy? Clare Croft‘s first book, Dancers as D...
Tabetha Ewing, “Rumor, Diplomacy, and War in Enlightenment Paris” (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2014)
31 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Tabetha Ewing‘s Rumor, Diplomacy and War in Enlightenment Paris (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2014) is all about the on dit, the ...
William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh, “Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana” (UNC Press, 2014)
24 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In December 2014, Cuba and the United States announced their renewed efforts to normalize relations. Diplomatic ties were severed in 1961 following th...
Greg Barnhisel, “Cold War Modernists: Art, Literature, and American Cultural Diplomacy” (Columbia UP, 2015)
02 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Greg Barnhisel‘s new book, Cold War Modernists: Art, Literature, and American Cultural Diplomacy (Columbia UP, 2015) examines how modernism was defa...
James D. Boys, “Clinton’s Grand Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Post-Cold War World” (Bloomsbury, 2015)
25 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
How should we look back at President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy legacy? As muddled? Visionary? Or simply uninspired? To answer these questions, J...
David Meren, “With Friends Like These: Entangled Nationalisms in the Canada-Quebec-France Triangle, 1944-1970” (University of British Columbia Press, 2014)
05 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle cried out “Vive le Quebec libre!” from the balcony of Montreal’s City Hall. The controversial moment...
Aristotle Tziampiris, “The Emergence of Israeli-Greek Cooperation” (Springer, 2015)
30 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Aristotle Tziampiris is The Emergence of Israeli-Greek Cooperation (Springer, 2015). Tziampiris is Associate Professor of International Relations and ...
Brian Vick, “The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon” (Harvard University Press, 2014)
14 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who knows anything about European history–and European diplomatic history in particular–who doesn’tknow a...
Kaeten Mistry, “The United States, Italy, and the Origins of Cold War: Waging Political Warfare” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
11 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In the annals of cold war history Italy is rarely seen as a crucial locale. In his stimulating new book, The United States, Italy, and the Origins of...
Thomas Weiss and Dan Plesch, eds., "We are Strong: Wartime Origins and the Future United Nations" (Routledge, 2015)
05 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Weiss and Dan Plesch are the co-editors of We Are Strong: Wartime Origins and the Future United Nations (Routledge, 2015). Weiss is Presid...
Don H. Doyle, “The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War” (Basic Books, 2015)
16 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Many Americans know about the military side of the Civil War, and the private, official diplomacy of the Civil War is also well documented. The Cause ...
Bilyana Lily, “Russian Foreign Policy toward Missile Defense” (Lexington Books, 2014)
03 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The current conflict in Ukraine has reopened old wounds and brought the complexity of Russia’s relationship with the United States and Europe to the...
Henry Nau, “Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy under Jefferson, Reagan, Truman, and Polk” (Princeton UP, 2013)
28 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have raised important questions about the future direction of U.S. foreign policy and how Americans can best e...
Joel Migdal, “Shifting Sands: The United States and the Middle East” (Columbia UP, 2014)
10 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Any person who turns on CNN or Fox News today will see that the United States faces a number of critical problems in the Middle East. This reality sho...
Donovan Chau, “Exploiting Africa: The Influence of Maoist China in Algeria, Ghana, and Tanzania” (NIP, 2014)
07 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Donovan Chau is the author of Exploiting Africa: The Influence of Maoist China in Algeria, Ghana, and Tanzania (Naval Institute Press, 2014). Chau is ...
Amy Stambach, “Confucius and Crisis in American Universities” (Routledge, 2014)
06 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Amy Stambach is the author of Confucius and Crisis in American Universities: Culture, Capital, and Diplomacy in U.S. Public Higher Education (Rout...
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, “HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton” (Crown Publishers, 2014).
07 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes are the co-authors of authors of HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton (Crown Publishers 2014). Allen i...
Joseph Nye, “Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era” (Princeton UP, 2013)
19 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph Nye‘s latest book is Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era (Princeton University Press, 2013). Professor Nye is Univer...
Matthew W. Mosca, “From Frontier Policy to Foreign Policy: The Question of India and the Transformation of Geopolitics in Qing China” (Stanford, 2013)
22 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew Mosca‘s impressively researched and carefully structured new book maps the transformation of geopolitical worldviews in a crucial period of ...
Inderjeet Parmar, “Foundations of the American Century” (Columbia UP, 2012)
27 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Inderjeet Parmar‘s Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia Univ...
Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, “American Umpire” (Harvard UP, 2013)
12 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Is there an “American Empire?” A lot of people on the Left say “yes.” Actually, a lot of people on the Right say “yes” too. But Elizabeth ...
Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “Courtly Encounters: Translating Courtliness and Violence in Early Modern Eurasia” (Harvard University Press, 2012)
05 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Sanjay Subrahmanyam‘s new book explores translations across texts, images, and cultural practices in the early modern world. Courtly Encounters: Tra...
Mark Haas, “The Clash of Ideologies: Middle Eastern Politics and American Security” (Oxford UP, 2012)
18 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
How do ideologies shape foreign policy? That is question Dr. Mark Haas examines in his new book The Clash of Ideologies: Middle Eastern Politics and A...
Robert K. Fitts, “Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan” (University of Nebraska Press, 2012)
23 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
There are three Americans in the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. One is Horace Wilson, the professor of English who brought his students outside for a...
Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, “Dropping the Torch: Jimmy Carter, the Olympic Boycott, and the Cold War” (Cambridge UP, 2010)
06 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
As a young, patriotic American, I was torn by the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. On the one hand, I knew already as an eleven-year-old...
Jeffrey Mankoff, “Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011)
15 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I spoke with Jeffrey Mankoff, an adjunct fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Stu...
Michael David-Fox, “Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941” (OUP, 2011)
27 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
People who care about other places (and that’s not everyone) have always thought of Russia as a strange place. It doesn’t seem to “fit.” A goo...
Artemy Kalinovsky, “A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan” (Harvard UP, 2011)
16 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been twenty years since the Soviet Union collapsed, and scholars still joust over its long- and short-term causes. Amid the myriad factors–st...
Keith Pomakoy, "Helping Humanity: American Policy and Genocide Rescue" (Lexington Books, 2011)
19 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
It's safe to say that nobody but genocidaires likes genocide. It's also safe to say that everyone but genocidaires wants to halt on-going campaign...
Dov Zakheim, "A Vulcan's Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan" (Brookings Institution Press, 2011)
15 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, A Vulcan's Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (Brookings Institution Press, 2011) Dov ...
Michael Auslin, "Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultural History of U.S.-Japan Relations" (Harvard UP, 2011)
05 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
How have the United States and Japan managed to remain such strong allies, despite having fought one another in a savage war less than 70 years ago? I...
David J. Silbey, “A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902” (Hill and Wang, 2008)
08 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The Spanish-American War was not only the beginning of a new imperial period for the United States, David Silbey observes in his book A War of Frontie...
Mark Bradley and Marilyn Young, “Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars” (Oxford UP, 2008)
14 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
What to think about the Vietnam War? A righteous struggle against global Communist tyranny? An episode in American imperialism? A civil war into which...
Amanda Podany, “Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East” (Oxford UP, 2010)
19 Aug 2010
Contributed by Lukas
I have a (much beloved) colleague who calls all history about things before AD 1900 “that old stuff.” Of course she means it as a gentle jab at th...
Julian E. Zelizer, “Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security From WWII to the War on Terrorism” (Basic Books, 2010)
14 Jan 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Historians are by their nature public intellectuals because they are intellectuals who write about, well, the public. Alas, many historians seem to fo...
Michaela Hoenicke, “Know Your Enemy: American Debate on Nazism, 1933-1945” (Cambridge UP, 2009)
29 Nov 2009
Contributed by Lukas
To Americans, Hitler et al. were a confusing bunch. The National Socialists were Germans, and Germans had a reputation for refinement, industry, and o...
James Mann, “The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War” (Viking, 2009)
20 Mar 2009
Contributed by Lukas
Ronald Reagan was a odd fellow. Nobody seems to know what to make of him. He started as a Democrat and then became a Republican. Then he broke ranks w...
Robert Hendershot, “Family Spats: Perception, Illusion and Sentimentality in the Anglo-American Special Relationship” (VDM, 2009)
13 Mar 2009
Contributed by Lukas
Gordon Brown, the British PM, came calling to Washington recently. He jumped the pond, of course, to have a chat with his new counterpart, President B...
Howard Jones, “The Bay of Pigs” (Oxford UP, 2008)
30 Aug 2008
Contributed by Lukas
There is just something about Fidel Castro that American presidents don’t like very much. Maybe it’s the long-winded anti-American diatribes. Mayb...