Philip Nash
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780813178394
- eISBN:
- 9780813178387
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813178394.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Breaking Protocol tells the story of the first female ambassadors in US history (1933–1964): Ruth Bryan Owen, Florence Jaffray Harriman, Perle S. Mesta, Eugenie M. Anderson, Clare Boothe Luce, and ...
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Breaking Protocol tells the story of the first female ambassadors in US history (1933–1964): Ruth Bryan Owen, Florence Jaffray Harriman, Perle S. Mesta, Eugenie M. Anderson, Clare Boothe Luce, and Frances E. Willis. This is the first group biography of the Big Six, one that places these women in a wider historical context based on deep and broad research in archival sources. It restores these women to their rightful place in history, and it assists the larger project of rendering women in international history visible.
It begins by establishing the historical context, the male-dominated world of American diplomacy in the first half of the twentieth century. It then devotes one chapter each to the six female ambassadors, describing their backgrounds and appointments, analyzing the issues they faced and experiences they had on the job, and assessing their performances.
It also traces the ambassadors’ reception by host countries; their sometimes fraught relations with the male-dominated State Department; the press coverage they received; the complications of protocol and the spouse issue; and how they practiced “people’s diplomacy”—getting to know, and representing America to, the host country’s whole society, not just its ruling elite. It ends by outlining the progress made and obstacles faced by women since the mid-1960s, and it concludes that, through their successful performances, the Big Six significantly contributed to gender progress in US foreign relations.Less
Breaking Protocol tells the story of the first female ambassadors in US history (1933–1964): Ruth Bryan Owen, Florence Jaffray Harriman, Perle S. Mesta, Eugenie M. Anderson, Clare Boothe Luce, and Frances E. Willis. This is the first group biography of the Big Six, one that places these women in a wider historical context based on deep and broad research in archival sources. It restores these women to their rightful place in history, and it assists the larger project of rendering women in international history visible.
It begins by establishing the historical context, the male-dominated world of American diplomacy in the first half of the twentieth century. It then devotes one chapter each to the six female ambassadors, describing their backgrounds and appointments, analyzing the issues they faced and experiences they had on the job, and assessing their performances.
It also traces the ambassadors’ reception by host countries; their sometimes fraught relations with the male-dominated State Department; the press coverage they received; the complications of protocol and the spouse issue; and how they practiced “people’s diplomacy”—getting to know, and representing America to, the host country’s whole society, not just its ruling elite. It ends by outlining the progress made and obstacles faced by women since the mid-1960s, and it concludes that, through their successful performances, the Big Six significantly contributed to gender progress in US foreign relations.
Joseph A. Fry
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813177120
- eISBN:
- 9780813177137
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813177120.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
As the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Henry Seward formed a most unlikely, but exceedingly successful foreign policy partnership. While functioning as the ...
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As the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Henry Seward formed a most unlikely, but exceedingly successful foreign policy partnership. While functioning as the senior partner, Lincoln instituted a one-war policy as the cornerstone of US diplomacy, brilliantly articulated the international importance of preserving the nation’s republican experiment, linked freeing the slaves to the Union’s survival, and oversaw the North’s military efforts. By threatening war with any nation that intervened in the American conflict, Seward practiced a purposeful brinkmanship that was essential to precluding potentially decisive European aid to the Confederacy. The secretary of state combined these ongoing threats with timely compromises at crucial junctures, such as the Trent affair; joined Lincoln in the skillful use of public diplomacy aimed at both domestic and foreign audiences; and adeptly responded to Napoleon III’s intervention in Mexico. The US victory advanced the cause of republicanism and nationalism in the western world; it also enabled the United States to resume its imperial growth toward great power status. Seward played a formative role in that imperial growth. Following Lincoln’s assassination, he remained secretary of state during the Andrew Johnson administration. Over those four years, Seward purchased Alaska and outlined an elaborate agenda for US commercial and territorial expansion, an agenda that forecast with remarkable specificity US actions at the turn of the twentieth century.Less
As the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Henry Seward formed a most unlikely, but exceedingly successful foreign policy partnership. While functioning as the senior partner, Lincoln instituted a one-war policy as the cornerstone of US diplomacy, brilliantly articulated the international importance of preserving the nation’s republican experiment, linked freeing the slaves to the Union’s survival, and oversaw the North’s military efforts. By threatening war with any nation that intervened in the American conflict, Seward practiced a purposeful brinkmanship that was essential to precluding potentially decisive European aid to the Confederacy. The secretary of state combined these ongoing threats with timely compromises at crucial junctures, such as the Trent affair; joined Lincoln in the skillful use of public diplomacy aimed at both domestic and foreign audiences; and adeptly responded to Napoleon III’s intervention in Mexico. The US victory advanced the cause of republicanism and nationalism in the western world; it also enabled the United States to resume its imperial growth toward great power status. Seward played a formative role in that imperial growth. Following Lincoln’s assassination, he remained secretary of state during the Andrew Johnson administration. Over those four years, Seward purchased Alaska and outlined an elaborate agenda for US commercial and territorial expansion, an agenda that forecast with remarkable specificity US actions at the turn of the twentieth century.
Alessandro Brogi, Giles Scott-Smith, and Snyder David J. (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780813177700
- eISBN:
- 9780813177717
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813177700.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
The Legacy of J. William Fulbright: Policy, Power, and Ideology offers a fresh retrospective on the influential career of Senator J. William Fulbright, a leading foreign policy thinker and the ...
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The Legacy of J. William Fulbright: Policy, Power, and Ideology offers a fresh retrospective on the influential career of Senator J. William Fulbright, a leading foreign policy thinker and the longest-serving chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in American history. Juxtaposing Fulbright’s career as a foreign policy intellectual, including his powerful framing of post–World War II liberal internationalism, with his advocacy for the eponymous educational exchange program that he devised, this book contextualizes liberal internationalism within a broader sweep of US foreign policy thinking. Especially relevant is the role of American culture and political institutions in the formulation of liberal internationalism as well as the erosion of liberal internationalist confidence in the years after the Vietnam War, all exemplified by Fulbright’s public utterances, his conduct in office, and the foreign influence of the famed scholarly exchange program that bears his name.Less
The Legacy of J. William Fulbright: Policy, Power, and Ideology offers a fresh retrospective on the influential career of Senator J. William Fulbright, a leading foreign policy thinker and the longest-serving chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in American history. Juxtaposing Fulbright’s career as a foreign policy intellectual, including his powerful framing of post–World War II liberal internationalism, with his advocacy for the eponymous educational exchange program that he devised, this book contextualizes liberal internationalism within a broader sweep of US foreign policy thinking. Especially relevant is the role of American culture and political institutions in the formulation of liberal internationalism as well as the erosion of liberal internationalist confidence in the years after the Vietnam War, all exemplified by Fulbright’s public utterances, his conduct in office, and the foreign influence of the famed scholarly exchange program that bears his name.
Katherine C. Epstein
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- March 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190695668
- eISBN:
- 9780190093143
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190695668.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Political History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines the transformation of US foreign relations in the period from 1865 to 1918. Some historians have explicitly analyzed this transformation in terms of “grand strategy.” Others who ...
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This chapter examines the transformation of US foreign relations in the period from 1865 to 1918. Some historians have explicitly analyzed this transformation in terms of “grand strategy.” Others who have not used the concept as an analytical tool have nevertheless offered interpretations that can be easily assimilated by the concept's enthusiasts and, if so desired, given a different ideological edge. Whether the emergence of the United States as a great power is to be welcomed or lamented, both celebrants and critics can agree that it happened, and that it happened largely as a result of the deliberate peacetime melding of industrial and naval power. Although the concept of grand strategy cannot be blamed for creating the problems with the existing literature on US foreign relations from the Civil War through World War I, it tends to worsen them, in two related ways. First, the concept of grand strategy privileges the nation-state as the unit of analysis, when no less important units in this case are the sub-national and the global. Second, the “grandness” of grand strategy encourages scholars to neglect critically important details of US economic and naval power. These details are more than isolated anomalies: taken together, they compel a new explanatory paradigm.Less
This chapter examines the transformation of US foreign relations in the period from 1865 to 1918. Some historians have explicitly analyzed this transformation in terms of “grand strategy.” Others who have not used the concept as an analytical tool have nevertheless offered interpretations that can be easily assimilated by the concept's enthusiasts and, if so desired, given a different ideological edge. Whether the emergence of the United States as a great power is to be welcomed or lamented, both celebrants and critics can agree that it happened, and that it happened largely as a result of the deliberate peacetime melding of industrial and naval power. Although the concept of grand strategy cannot be blamed for creating the problems with the existing literature on US foreign relations from the Civil War through World War I, it tends to worsen them, in two related ways. First, the concept of grand strategy privileges the nation-state as the unit of analysis, when no less important units in this case are the sub-national and the global. Second, the “grandness” of grand strategy encourages scholars to neglect critically important details of US economic and naval power. These details are more than isolated anomalies: taken together, they compel a new explanatory paradigm.
Jason C. Parker
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190251840
- eISBN:
- 9780190251871
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190251840.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century, World Modern History
While the Truman administration perceived and declared the Cold War a total conflict early on in the postwar years, its public diplomacy activities did not reflect this global scale for some time to ...
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While the Truman administration perceived and declared the Cold War a total conflict early on in the postwar years, its public diplomacy activities did not reflect this global scale for some time to come. Latin America was on the front lines of the Cold War’s first security alliances, and South Asia was among the first areas to achieve its independence—and in both places, the United States was slow to make its public diplomacy case. Haphazard, understated, and ineffective Global North outreach nonetheless paved the way for the inexorable expansion, thanks above all to the Point Four aid program for the modernization and development of impoverished areas of the Cold War into these and other places outside Europe. In response, actors there began formulating a geopolitical imaginary outside the Global North’s Cold War.Less
While the Truman administration perceived and declared the Cold War a total conflict early on in the postwar years, its public diplomacy activities did not reflect this global scale for some time to come. Latin America was on the front lines of the Cold War’s first security alliances, and South Asia was among the first areas to achieve its independence—and in both places, the United States was slow to make its public diplomacy case. Haphazard, understated, and ineffective Global North outreach nonetheless paved the way for the inexorable expansion, thanks above all to the Point Four aid program for the modernization and development of impoverished areas of the Cold War into these and other places outside Europe. In response, actors there began formulating a geopolitical imaginary outside the Global North’s Cold War.
William J. Rust
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780813167428
- eISBN:
- 9780813167435
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813167428.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This book documents the formulation and execution of US foreign policy in Cambodia during the Eisenhower administration. Based on exhaustive research at the US National Archives, the Eisenhower ...
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This book documents the formulation and execution of US foreign policy in Cambodia during the Eisenhower administration. Based on exhaustive research at the US National Archives, the Eisenhower Library, and other public and private collections of primary sources, the book is a detailed narrative of the Eisenhower administration’s diplomatic struggle with Norodom Sihanouk. A difficult leader who was, at least initially, pro-Western in his political orientation, Sihanouk offended top US officials with his “neutralism.” For much of Eisenhower’s presidency, national security policy supported those who worked against Sihanouk. The book pays particular attention to US relations with anticommunist Cambodian dissidents, especially Dap Chhuon and Son Ngoc Thanh, and with their patrons in South Vietnam and Thailand. This book argues that covert intervention in the internal political affairs of neutral Cambodia proved to be a counterproductive tactic for advancing US anticommunist goals. A contribution to a still-emerging understanding of covert operations in the cold war, the book contends that the US experience in Cambodia in the 1950s deserves more attention in histories of the Indochinese wars and in assessments of Eisenhower’s performance as president. Although some historians have documented President Eisenhower’s moderation, prudence, and restraint in managing the nation’s foreign affairs, these qualities were often lacking in his administration’s relations with Cambodia, which were largely defined by hostility to Sihanouk’s conception of neutrality, by contempt for the prince personally, and by a covert effort to encourage his overthrow.Less
This book documents the formulation and execution of US foreign policy in Cambodia during the Eisenhower administration. Based on exhaustive research at the US National Archives, the Eisenhower Library, and other public and private collections of primary sources, the book is a detailed narrative of the Eisenhower administration’s diplomatic struggle with Norodom Sihanouk. A difficult leader who was, at least initially, pro-Western in his political orientation, Sihanouk offended top US officials with his “neutralism.” For much of Eisenhower’s presidency, national security policy supported those who worked against Sihanouk. The book pays particular attention to US relations with anticommunist Cambodian dissidents, especially Dap Chhuon and Son Ngoc Thanh, and with their patrons in South Vietnam and Thailand. This book argues that covert intervention in the internal political affairs of neutral Cambodia proved to be a counterproductive tactic for advancing US anticommunist goals. A contribution to a still-emerging understanding of covert operations in the cold war, the book contends that the US experience in Cambodia in the 1950s deserves more attention in histories of the Indochinese wars and in assessments of Eisenhower’s performance as president. Although some historians have documented President Eisenhower’s moderation, prudence, and restraint in managing the nation’s foreign affairs, these qualities were often lacking in his administration’s relations with Cambodia, which were largely defined by hostility to Sihanouk’s conception of neutrality, by contempt for the prince personally, and by a covert effort to encourage his overthrow.
David P. Fields
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813177199
- eISBN:
- 9780813177250
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813177199.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This book examines how Syngman Rhee and the Korean independence movement used the rhetoric of American exceptionalism to lobby the U.S. government and the American public for support between 1905 and ...
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This book examines how Syngman Rhee and the Korean independence movement used the rhetoric of American exceptionalism to lobby the U.S. government and the American public for support between 1905 and 1945. Alleging that Theodore Roosevelt violated the 1882 Korean-American Treaty when he tacitly supported the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1905, Rhee argued that Germany was not the only nation guilty of regarding treaties as “mere scraps of paper” and exhorted Americans to right this historical wrong by supporting Korean independence. He argued that doing so would prove Americans were the exceptional people many of them believed themselves to be.
Rhee’s message gained credibility, not only because the concept of American exceptionalism resonated with Americans, but also because at various junctures certain Americans found the Korean cause useful. During the fight over the Versailles Treaty, the so-called Irreconcilable senators used the Korean issue to criticize President Wilson and to deflect the charge that they were isolationists. During the denouement of World War II, anticommunist politicians and civic organizations argued that Korea must not be abandoned to communism and that the United States’ treatment of Korea would be a test of American resolve in establishing a new rules-based order. The publicity Korea received from these and other episodes transformed Korea into an issue that could not be ignored in the postwar period. The irony and tragedy of Rhee’s efforts is that not only did they fail to regain Korea’s independence, but they directly contributed to the decision to divide Korea—an outcome he never foresaw or supported.Less
This book examines how Syngman Rhee and the Korean independence movement used the rhetoric of American exceptionalism to lobby the U.S. government and the American public for support between 1905 and 1945. Alleging that Theodore Roosevelt violated the 1882 Korean-American Treaty when he tacitly supported the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1905, Rhee argued that Germany was not the only nation guilty of regarding treaties as “mere scraps of paper” and exhorted Americans to right this historical wrong by supporting Korean independence. He argued that doing so would prove Americans were the exceptional people many of them believed themselves to be.
Rhee’s message gained credibility, not only because the concept of American exceptionalism resonated with Americans, but also because at various junctures certain Americans found the Korean cause useful. During the fight over the Versailles Treaty, the so-called Irreconcilable senators used the Korean issue to criticize President Wilson and to deflect the charge that they were isolationists. During the denouement of World War II, anticommunist politicians and civic organizations argued that Korea must not be abandoned to communism and that the United States’ treatment of Korea would be a test of American resolve in establishing a new rules-based order. The publicity Korea received from these and other episodes transformed Korea into an issue that could not be ignored in the postwar period. The irony and tragedy of Rhee’s efforts is that not only did they fail to regain Korea’s independence, but they directly contributed to the decision to divide Korea—an outcome he never foresaw or supported.
Susan Zeiger
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814797174
- eISBN:
- 9780814797488
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814797174.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Throughout the twentieth century, American male soldiers returned home from wars with foreign-born wives in tow, often from allied, but at times from enemy, nations, resulting in a new, official ...
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Throughout the twentieth century, American male soldiers returned home from wars with foreign-born wives in tow, often from allied, but at times from enemy, nations, resulting in a new, official category of immigrant: the “allied” war bride. These brides began to appear en masse after World War I, peaked after World War II, and persisted through the Korean and Vietnam wars. GIs also met and married former “enemy” women under conditions of postwar occupation, although at times the US government banned such unions. This book uses relationships between American male soldiers and foreign women as a lens to view larger issues of sexuality, race, and gender in US foreign relations. It draws on a rich array of sources to trace how war and postwar anxieties about power and national identity have long been projected onto war brides, and how these anxieties translate into public policies, particularly immigration.Less
Throughout the twentieth century, American male soldiers returned home from wars with foreign-born wives in tow, often from allied, but at times from enemy, nations, resulting in a new, official category of immigrant: the “allied” war bride. These brides began to appear en masse after World War I, peaked after World War II, and persisted through the Korean and Vietnam wars. GIs also met and married former “enemy” women under conditions of postwar occupation, although at times the US government banned such unions. This book uses relationships between American male soldiers and foreign women as a lens to view larger issues of sexuality, race, and gender in US foreign relations. It draws on a rich array of sources to trace how war and postwar anxieties about power and national identity have long been projected onto war brides, and how these anxieties translate into public policies, particularly immigration.
Benjamin Allen Coates
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190495954
- eISBN:
- 9780190495985
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190495954.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
The introduction highlights the overlap between the rise of the international law profession and the emergence of an overseas US empire in 1898, with the territorial expansion that followed the US ...
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The introduction highlights the overlap between the rise of the international law profession and the emergence of an overseas US empire in 1898, with the territorial expansion that followed the US victory in the Spanish-American War. It argues that scholars of international law and historians of US foreign relations have not fully explored this relationship, and explains how studying the words and deeds of international lawyers reveals the legal components of empire and the imperial roots of international law. The introduction also offers a brief account of the national and international contexts that made international law a respected and influential profession in the United States in the early twentieth century.Less
The introduction highlights the overlap between the rise of the international law profession and the emergence of an overseas US empire in 1898, with the territorial expansion that followed the US victory in the Spanish-American War. It argues that scholars of international law and historians of US foreign relations have not fully explored this relationship, and explains how studying the words and deeds of international lawyers reveals the legal components of empire and the imperial roots of international law. The introduction also offers a brief account of the national and international contexts that made international law a respected and influential profession in the United States in the early twentieth century.
Jonathan R. Hunt and Simon Miles (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501760686
- eISBN:
- 9781501760709
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501760686.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
In this book, the ideas, events, strategies, trends, and movements that shaped the 1980s are revealed to have had lasting effects on international relations: The United States went from a creditor to ...
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In this book, the ideas, events, strategies, trends, and movements that shaped the 1980s are revealed to have had lasting effects on international relations: The United States went from a creditor to a debtor nation; democracy crested in East Asia and returned to Latin America; the People's Republic of China moved to privatize, decentralize, and open its economy; Osama bin Laden founded Al Qaeda; and relations between Washington and Moscow thawed en route to the Soviet Union's dissolution. The book places US foreign relations into global context by examining the economic, international, and ideational relationships that bound Washington to the wider world. It brings together fresh insights from untapped and declassified global sources to recast Reagan's pivotal years in power.Less
In this book, the ideas, events, strategies, trends, and movements that shaped the 1980s are revealed to have had lasting effects on international relations: The United States went from a creditor to a debtor nation; democracy crested in East Asia and returned to Latin America; the People's Republic of China moved to privatize, decentralize, and open its economy; Osama bin Laden founded Al Qaeda; and relations between Washington and Moscow thawed en route to the Soviet Union's dissolution. The book places US foreign relations into global context by examining the economic, international, and ideational relationships that bound Washington to the wider world. It brings together fresh insights from untapped and declassified global sources to recast Reagan's pivotal years in power.
Jason C. Parker
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190251840
- eISBN:
- 9780190251871
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190251840.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century, World Modern History
The Eisenhower administration’s creation of the United States Information Agency (USIA), along with its elevation of public diplomacy within the national security apparatus, gave US overseas outreach ...
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The Eisenhower administration’s creation of the United States Information Agency (USIA), along with its elevation of public diplomacy within the national security apparatus, gave US overseas outreach greater organizational coherence and thematic clarity. It also accompanied a geographical and intellectual shift and expansion of US public diplomacy’s focus beyond Europe. This reflected not only an enlarged US mental map of the Cold War, to include places like Guatemala; it also prompted responses from that wider world, at Bandung and elsewhere. Washington increasingly perceived that the dynamics of race, decolonization, and nonalignment were rising in importance, even as the United States doubted that those could ever operate fully independently of the Cold War. The Eisenhower administration thus adopted public diplomacy strategies of varying subtlety, but these tended to be overwhelmed by the rising rhetorical tide of the global race revolution that would ultimately foster the entity of the Third World.Less
The Eisenhower administration’s creation of the United States Information Agency (USIA), along with its elevation of public diplomacy within the national security apparatus, gave US overseas outreach greater organizational coherence and thematic clarity. It also accompanied a geographical and intellectual shift and expansion of US public diplomacy’s focus beyond Europe. This reflected not only an enlarged US mental map of the Cold War, to include places like Guatemala; it also prompted responses from that wider world, at Bandung and elsewhere. Washington increasingly perceived that the dynamics of race, decolonization, and nonalignment were rising in importance, even as the United States doubted that those could ever operate fully independently of the Cold War. The Eisenhower administration thus adopted public diplomacy strategies of varying subtlety, but these tended to be overwhelmed by the rising rhetorical tide of the global race revolution that would ultimately foster the entity of the Third World.
James McAllister
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501759932
- eISBN:
- 9781501759949
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501759932.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This book recovers the history of the most influential forum of American liberal internationalism in the immediate aftermath of the First World War: The Williamstown Institute of Politics. ...
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This book recovers the history of the most influential forum of American liberal internationalism in the immediate aftermath of the First World War: The Williamstown Institute of Politics. Established in 1921 by Harry A. Garfield, the president of Williams College, the Institute was dedicated to promoting an informed perspective on world politics even as the United States, still gathering itself after World War I, retreated from the Wilsonian vision of active involvement in European political affairs. Located on the Williams campus in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, the Institute's annual summer session of lectures and roundtables attracted scholars, diplomats, and peace activists from around the world. Newspapers and press services reported the proceedings and controversies of the Institute to an American public divided over fundamental questions about US involvement in the world. In an era where the institutions of liberal internationalism were just taking shape, Garfield's institutional model was rapidly emulated by colleges and universities across the US. The book tracks the career of the Institute, tracing its roots back to the tragedy of the First World War and Garfield's disappointment in America's failure to join the League of Nations. It also shows the Progressive Era origins of the Institute and the importance of the political and intellectual relationship formed between Garfield and Wilson at Princeton University in the early 1900s. The book restores the Institute to its rightful status in the intellectual history of US foreign relations and shows it to be a formative institution as the country transitioned from domestic isolation to global engagement.Less
This book recovers the history of the most influential forum of American liberal internationalism in the immediate aftermath of the First World War: The Williamstown Institute of Politics. Established in 1921 by Harry A. Garfield, the president of Williams College, the Institute was dedicated to promoting an informed perspective on world politics even as the United States, still gathering itself after World War I, retreated from the Wilsonian vision of active involvement in European political affairs. Located on the Williams campus in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, the Institute's annual summer session of lectures and roundtables attracted scholars, diplomats, and peace activists from around the world. Newspapers and press services reported the proceedings and controversies of the Institute to an American public divided over fundamental questions about US involvement in the world. In an era where the institutions of liberal internationalism were just taking shape, Garfield's institutional model was rapidly emulated by colleges and universities across the US. The book tracks the career of the Institute, tracing its roots back to the tragedy of the First World War and Garfield's disappointment in America's failure to join the League of Nations. It also shows the Progressive Era origins of the Institute and the importance of the political and intellectual relationship formed between Garfield and Wilson at Princeton University in the early 1900s. The book restores the Institute to its rightful status in the intellectual history of US foreign relations and shows it to be a formative institution as the country transitioned from domestic isolation to global engagement.
Jason C. Parker
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190251840
- eISBN:
- 9780190251871
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190251840.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century, World Modern History
Even before the Korean War showed that the Cold War had become a global conflict, Washington had worried that it was falling behind the communists on the public diplomacy front. Organizational chaos ...
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Even before the Korean War showed that the Cold War had become a global conflict, Washington had worried that it was falling behind the communists on the public diplomacy front. Organizational chaos and conceptual confusion had hamstrung American outreach. The outbreak of hostilities in Korea threatened to turn these weaknesses into dangers for parties beyond just Washington, which stepped up its regional outreach even as Afro-Asian-Arab actors worried that the rhetoric would spread Cold War violence elsewhere. As the site where the Cold War first turned into hot combat, Korea put a premium on public diplomacy in and around the war zone. The trials and errors of the Truman years, born of the need to battle for non-European hearts and minds previously disregarded, bequeathed an expanded machinery of public diplomacy and, more importantly, the second draft of a new geopolitical entity in the Global South at which it could be targeted.Less
Even before the Korean War showed that the Cold War had become a global conflict, Washington had worried that it was falling behind the communists on the public diplomacy front. Organizational chaos and conceptual confusion had hamstrung American outreach. The outbreak of hostilities in Korea threatened to turn these weaknesses into dangers for parties beyond just Washington, which stepped up its regional outreach even as Afro-Asian-Arab actors worried that the rhetoric would spread Cold War violence elsewhere. As the site where the Cold War first turned into hot combat, Korea put a premium on public diplomacy in and around the war zone. The trials and errors of the Truman years, born of the need to battle for non-European hearts and minds previously disregarded, bequeathed an expanded machinery of public diplomacy and, more importantly, the second draft of a new geopolitical entity in the Global South at which it could be targeted.
Benjamin Allen Coates
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190495954
- eISBN:
- 9780190495985
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190495954.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
Legalist Empire explores the intimate connections between international law and empire in the United States from 1898 to 1919. Though many histories treat Woodrow Wilson’s plans for the League of ...
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Legalist Empire explores the intimate connections between international law and empire in the United States from 1898 to 1919. Though many histories treat Woodrow Wilson’s plans for the League of Nations as the beginning of America’s substantive engagement with international law, this book demonstrates the broad influence of legal concepts and expertise in the years before World War I. It follows such lawyers as Elihu Root, John Bassett Moore, James Brown Scott, and Robert Lansing as they created an American profession of international law, promoted the creation of international courts, represented corporations with business overseas, and served as high-ranking policymakers in Washington. A widespread belief in the inevitable progress of “civilization” simultaneously justified American empire and underwrote the claim that international adjudication could bring world peace. Legalist Empire shows how international lawyers justified the conquest of the Philippines, the taking of Panama, and interventions throughout the Caribbean, and also explains why the law of neutrality helped lead the United States into World War I. The book also offers a new history of the origins of the American international law profession. Research in the papers and publications of lawyers and their organizations shows how political, ideological, and cultural assumptions shaped the emerging profession. A conclusion tracing developments to the present further emphasizes that rather than being antagonists, empire and the international rule of law have frequently reinforced each other in American history.Less
Legalist Empire explores the intimate connections between international law and empire in the United States from 1898 to 1919. Though many histories treat Woodrow Wilson’s plans for the League of Nations as the beginning of America’s substantive engagement with international law, this book demonstrates the broad influence of legal concepts and expertise in the years before World War I. It follows such lawyers as Elihu Root, John Bassett Moore, James Brown Scott, and Robert Lansing as they created an American profession of international law, promoted the creation of international courts, represented corporations with business overseas, and served as high-ranking policymakers in Washington. A widespread belief in the inevitable progress of “civilization” simultaneously justified American empire and underwrote the claim that international adjudication could bring world peace. Legalist Empire shows how international lawyers justified the conquest of the Philippines, the taking of Panama, and interventions throughout the Caribbean, and also explains why the law of neutrality helped lead the United States into World War I. The book also offers a new history of the origins of the American international law profession. Research in the papers and publications of lawyers and their organizations shows how political, ideological, and cultural assumptions shaped the emerging profession. A conclusion tracing developments to the present further emphasizes that rather than being antagonists, empire and the international rule of law have frequently reinforced each other in American history.
Kyle Burke
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469640730
- eISBN:
- 9781469640754
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469640730.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Freedom fighters. Guerrilla warriors. Soldiers of fortune. The many civil wars and rebellions against communist governments drew heavily from this cast of characters. Yet from Nicaragua to ...
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Freedom fighters. Guerrilla warriors. Soldiers of fortune. The many civil wars and rebellions against communist governments drew heavily from this cast of characters. Yet from Nicaragua to Afghanistan, Vietnam to Angola, Cuba to the Congo, the connections between these anticommunist groups have remained hazy and their coordination obscure. Yet as Kyle Burke reveals, these conflicts were the product of a rising movement that sought paramilitary action against communism worldwide. Tacking between the United States and many other countries, Burke offers an international history not only of the paramilitaries who started and waged small wars in the second half of the twentieth century but of conservatism in the Cold War era. From the start of the Cold War, Burke shows, leading U.S. conservatives and their allies abroad dreamed of an international anticommunist revolution. They pinned their hopes to armed men, freedom fighters who could unravel communist states from within. And so they fashioned a global network of activists and state officials, guerrillas and mercenaries, ex-spies and ex-soldiers to sponsor paramilitary campaigns in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Blurring the line between state-sanctioned and vigilante violence, this armed crusade helped radicalize right-wing groups in the United States while also generating new forms of privatized warfare abroad.Less
Freedom fighters. Guerrilla warriors. Soldiers of fortune. The many civil wars and rebellions against communist governments drew heavily from this cast of characters. Yet from Nicaragua to Afghanistan, Vietnam to Angola, Cuba to the Congo, the connections between these anticommunist groups have remained hazy and their coordination obscure. Yet as Kyle Burke reveals, these conflicts were the product of a rising movement that sought paramilitary action against communism worldwide. Tacking between the United States and many other countries, Burke offers an international history not only of the paramilitaries who started and waged small wars in the second half of the twentieth century but of conservatism in the Cold War era. From the start of the Cold War, Burke shows, leading U.S. conservatives and their allies abroad dreamed of an international anticommunist revolution. They pinned their hopes to armed men, freedom fighters who could unravel communist states from within. And so they fashioned a global network of activists and state officials, guerrillas and mercenaries, ex-spies and ex-soldiers to sponsor paramilitary campaigns in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Blurring the line between state-sanctioned and vigilante violence, this armed crusade helped radicalize right-wing groups in the United States while also generating new forms of privatized warfare abroad.
Kyle Burke
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469640730
- eISBN:
- 9781469640754
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469640730.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The introduction opens with the story of John Singlaub, a retired US Army general who spearheaded covert campaigns to aid anticommunist freedom fighters in Asia, Africa, and Latin America the 1980s. ...
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The introduction opens with the story of John Singlaub, a retired US Army general who spearheaded covert campaigns to aid anticommunist freedom fighters in Asia, Africa, and Latin America the 1980s. Singlaub’s work serves as an entry point into the anticommunist international—a globe-spanning network of conservative and right-wing forces that worked in concert across the Cold War era. Drawing upon convictions that dated back to the 1950s, Singlaub and many others hoped to foment a worldwide anticommunist revolution, liberating humankind from the threat of totalitarianism. Breaking with conventional histories that portray these forces as backwards-looking reactionaries, this book argues that the Cold War Right was internationalist in its orientation and revolutionary in its aims.Less
The introduction opens with the story of John Singlaub, a retired US Army general who spearheaded covert campaigns to aid anticommunist freedom fighters in Asia, Africa, and Latin America the 1980s. Singlaub’s work serves as an entry point into the anticommunist international—a globe-spanning network of conservative and right-wing forces that worked in concert across the Cold War era. Drawing upon convictions that dated back to the 1950s, Singlaub and many others hoped to foment a worldwide anticommunist revolution, liberating humankind from the threat of totalitarianism. Breaking with conventional histories that portray these forces as backwards-looking reactionaries, this book argues that the Cold War Right was internationalist in its orientation and revolutionary in its aims.