The Power of the Past : History and Statecraft

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Suri, Jeremi.

Brands, Hal, 1983-

Bloomsbury (Firm), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Diplomatic relations.

United States.

United States--Foreign relations--Case studies.

United States--History.

Genre:

Case studies.

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (223 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

New York : Bloomsbury Publishing(US), 2016.

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : Brookings Institution Press, [2016]

Language Note:

English

System Details:

data file

Summary:

Leading scholars and policymakers explore how history influences foreign policy and offer insights on how the study of the past can more usefully serve the present. History, with its insights, analogies, and narratives, is central to the ways that the United States interacts with the world. Historians and policymakers, however, rarely engage one another as effectively or fruitfully as they might. This book bridges that divide, bringing together leading scholars and policymakers to address the essential questions surrounding the history-policy relationship including Mark Lawrence on the numerous, and often contradictory, historical lessons that American observers have drawn from the Vietnam War; H. W. Brands on the role of analogies in U.S. policy during the Persian Gulf crisis and war of 1990-91; and Jeremi Suri on Henry Kissinger's powerful use of history.

Contents:

Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; 1 - Introduction: Thinking about History and Foreign Policy; Part I - How History does Influence Policy; 2 - Henry Kissinger, the Study of History, and the Modern Statesman; 3 - Policymaking and the Uses of the Vietnam War; 4 - Neither Munich nor Vietnam: The Gulf War of 1991; 5 - Narrating Democracy: Historical Narratives, the Potsdam Declaration, and Japanese Rearmament, 194550; Part II - How History can and should Influence Policy; 6 - Containment: Myth and Metaphor; 7 - Grand Strategy and Petty Squabbles: The Paradox and Lessons of the Reagan NSC

8 - The Ambiguities of Humanitarian Intervention9 - The Shadow of White Slavery: Race, Innocence, and History in Contemporary AntiHuman Trafficking Campaigns; Part III - Policymakers Insights; 10 - History, Policymaking, and the Balkans: Lessons Imported and Lessons Learned; 11 - Looking Forward through the Past: The Role of History in Bush White House National Security Policymaking; 12 - The Nature of Historys Lessons; About the Authors; Index; Back Cover

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

0-8157-5141-9

0-8157-2713-5

OCLC:

930489393