The Power of the Past: History and Statecraft - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0815727127 ISBN 13: 9780815727125

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, 2015

Synopsis

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. Chapters include:

• 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.
• Jeremi Suri on Henry Kissinger's powerful use of history.
• James Steinberg on how various forms of history informed U.S. responses to the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
• Peter Feaver and William Inboden on the roles that historical knowledge and analogies played in several key policy initiatives undertaken during their time at the National Security Council from 2005 to 2007.
• Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission, offers a broad and rich discussion of what kinds of lessons history actually offers.

About this title

Review:

'Admittedly, there is no way for even the most accessible historian to prevent a politician from using history expediently. But, over time, policymakers’ history will only get better if historians provide more useful inspiration. This exceptional volume is a sober wake-up call.'
- Russell Crandall and Wade Leach

About the Author:

Hal Brands teaches in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. He is the author of three books on U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy, most recently What Good Is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (2014).

Jeremi Suri is the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, USA where he is a professor in the Department of History and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. He is the author or editor of six previous books on international affairs, including Foreign Policy Breakthroughs: Cases in Successful Diplomacy (coedited with Robert Hutchings) and Liberty's Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0815727127
• ISBN 13: 9780815727125
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 333
• Editor: Brands Hal