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UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS |
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From Abraham
Lincoln’s stance on international slavery to George W. Bush’s incursions on the
world stage, American presidents and other leaders have taken decisive actions
to shape our country’s foreign policy. This new collection of essays provides
analytical narratives of how and why policies were devised and implemented that
would determine the place of the United States in the international arena from
the 1860s to the present. Showing what individuals do—or choose not to do—is
central to understanding diplomacy in peace and war.
These writings—by such prominent historians as Terry H. Anderson and Eugene P. Trani—examine presidents and other diplomats at their best and worst in the practice of statecraft. They take on issues ranging from America’s economic expansion abroad to the relations of democracies with authoritarian leaders and rogue nations to advocacy of such concepts as internationalism, unilateralism, nation building, and regime change. In so doing, they take readers on a virtual tour of American diplomatic history, tracing the ideas and actions of individuals in shaping our foreign policy, whether George F. Kennan as author of Soviet containment or Ronald Reagan as progenitor of “Star Wars.”
The essays range over a variety of scenarios to depict leaders coming to grips with real-world situations. They offer original views on such topics as American diplomacy toward Nicaragua, origins of U.S. attitudes toward Russia and the Soviet Union, FDR’s idiosyncratic approach to statecraft, and food diplomacy as practiced by LBJ and Richard Nixon. And in considering post–Cold War crises, they address Bill Clinton’s military interventions, George W. Bush’s war against Iraq, and the half-century background to the current nuclear standoff with Iran. Additional articles pay tribute to the outstanding career of Robert H. Ferrell as a scholar and teacher.
Throughout the volume, the authors seek to exemplify the scholarly standards of narrative diplomatic history espoused by Robert Ferrell—especially the notion that historians should attempt to explain fully the circumstances, opportunities, and pressures that influence foreign policy decisions while remembering that historical actors cannot with certainty predict the outcomes of their actions. Presidents, Diplomats, and Other Mortals is both a collection of compelling historical studies and an overarching case study of the role of individuals in foreign policy making and an insightful review of some of history’s most important moments. Taken together, these essays provide a fitting tribute to Ferrell, the trailblazing scholar in whose honor the book was written.
About the Editors
J. Garry Clifford is Professor of Political Science at the
University of Connecticut and among other books coauthor of American
Foreign Relations: A History. He lives in Storrs. Theodore A. Wilson
is Professor of History at the University of Kansas and coeditor of
Makers of American Diplomacy: From Benjamin Franklin to Henry Kissinger
as well as other works treating American diplomacy.
Contents
Introduction
Introduction: Individuals, Narratives, and Diplomatic History by Theodore A. Wilson
I. A Nineteenth Century Icon
Toward a More Perfect Union: Lincoln and the Death of Slavery by Howard Jones
II. Early Twentieth Century
A Tale of Two Kennans: American-Russian Relations in the in the Twentieth Century by Eugene P. Trani and Donald E. Davis
Our Man in Managua: Lawrence Dennis and the Nicaraguan Crisis of 1926 by Richard H. Bradford
A Friendly Problem: Washington’s Assessment of Anastasio Somoza Garcia by William Kamman,
III. FDR: The Sphinx
Blundering on the Brink, 1941: FDR and the 203-202 Vote Reconsidered by J. Garry Clifford and Theodore A. Wilson
America and Saudi Arabia, Act I: The Conference of FDR and Ibn Saud in February 1945 by Ross Gregory
IV. From Eisenhower to Reagan
Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair: A Forty-Six-Year Retrospective by William B. Pickett
Lyndon Johnson, Dean Rusk, and the China Question by Charles Dobbs
Scenes of Disaster: Johnson, Nixon, and the Dramatic Uses of Famine by Nick Cullather
Washington and Doha: The Beginnings 1971–1974 by Miriam Joyce
Cinema and National Defense: Another Look at Ronald Reagan and Hollywood by Stephen Vaughn
V. Background of Post–Cold War Crises
Revisionism: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Origins of the Iraq War by Terry H. Anderson
Crisis without End: The United States and Iran from Truman to Bush by James Goode,
Clinton’s Wilsonian Military Interventions: A Critique by Thomas H. Buckley
Presidents Harry S. Truman, George W. Bush, and the Perils of Regime Change by Arnold A. Offner
VI. Appendix: Robert H. Ferrell, Teacher and Scholar
Robert H. Ferrell: An Appreciation by Lawrence Kaplan,
The Young Bob Ferrell: From Yale to Indiana by J. Garry Clifford