National History Center

In the latest event co-hosted by the Center and the Council on Foreign Relations at the Council’s New York headquarters, Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley questioned Newsweek editor-at-large Evan Thomas on the relationship between U.S. Presidents and war.  Evan Thomas delves into the “psychohistory” of Theodore Roosevelt’s enthusiasm for the Spanish-American War and Roosevelt’s subsequent international decisions as President compared to other early twentieth-century U.S. presidents. The series, now in its third year, focuses on the connection between history and current foreign policy. The November 30 session was attended by more than 130 members of the Council and their guests.

Douglas Brinkley (left) and Evan Thomas (right)

Thomas used his recent book, The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, and Hearst and the Rush to Empire, 1898, as a springboard to a discussion beginning with Teddy Roosevelt and moving through history to the current administration. He argued that Roosevelt’s experiences in the conflict with the Spanish in Cuba broke his yearning for war. Thomas compared TR’s “carry a big stick” policy to Eisenhower’s efforts to keep the U.S. out of combat during the Cold War, remarking that both believed in the public display of awesome war power as a deterrent to its actual use. Thomas also answered questions from the audience.

The transcript of the event can be found here.

John G.A. Pocock, Johns Hopkins University, gives the last Washington History Seminar for the semester on Monday, December 6 at 4:00 pm at the Wilson Center.

The Roman Empire was a Mediterranean phenomenon, the result of one city state’s conquests over other city states. Its central problem was the organization of military power in relation to political legitimacy. It was neither an empire of settlement nor an empire over peoples of alien and unassimilable culture. The British Empire was oceanic and commercial. By the end of the War of American Independence it had ceased to be an empire of settlement, but had acquired in India an empire over peoples not assimilable to European or British culture. The contrast has enduring relevance to the problems of today.

Click here for a video of his presentation.

John Pocock is Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. His books include The Machiavellian Moment (1975), The Discovery of Islands: Essays in British History (2005), and Political Thought and History: Essays on Theory and Method (2009). He is completing a multi-volume study of Edward Gibbon. He is a recipient of the American Historical Association’s Award for Scholarly Distinction.

This will be the last of the Washington History Seminars for the semester.  The series will return again on Mondays starting on January 24, 2011 with Sheldon Garon.

Reservations are requested because of limited seating. To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103 or email. The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center. Wm. Roger Louis and Christian Ostermann are the co-directors. The seminar meets weekly during the academic year, January to May and September to December. Click here for the schedule, speakers, topics, and dates as well as videos and podcasts. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

At the next National History Center-Woodrow Wilson International Seminar for Scholars weekly “Washington History Seminar,” David S. Painter, Georgetown University will examine the relationship with oil and world power. His lecture, entitled “Oil and World Power” is Monday, November 29, 2010 at 4:00 pm at the Wilson Center.

During the twentieth century oil was essential to military power and economic strength, and was thus a key element in determining the relative power of nations. Struggles over oil were an important focus of rivalry among the great powers, and a significant source of conflict between oil-consuming countries and oil-producing nations. Possession of ample domestic supplies and control over access to foreign oil reserves were significant, and often overlooked, elements in the hegemonic position of the United States to its rivals.

Click here for a video of his presentation.

David S. Painter teaches international history at Georgetown University. His publications include Oil and the American Century (1986), Origins of the Cold War (co-editor, 1994), and The Cold War (1999). He is currently working on a study of oil and world power in the twentieth century.

Reservations are requested because of limited seating. To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103 or email. The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center. Wm. Roger Louis and Christian Ostermann are the co-directors. The seminar meets weekly during the academic year, January to May and September to December. Click here for the schedule, speakers, topics, and dates as well as videos and podcasts. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

The National History Center will partner with the American Historical Association’s Teaching Division and its Graduate and Early Career Committee (GECC) to present a workshop on “Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching” at the AHA’s 125th Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts in January, 2011.

The all-day workshop will convene Thursday, January 6, the first day of the annual meeting.  It will be open at no additional cost to anyone who registers for the meeting, though it is aimed at graduate students and individuals new to teaching.  Three sessions will address topics identified by the GECC as being of particular use to novice teachers:  how to create an undergraduate course and develop a syllabus, how to become an effective lecturer for larger classes, and how to balance research, teaching, and service while completing the dissertation and searching for a job or fulfilling the requirements for gaining tenure.

Confirmed presenters  include teaching and learning theorist Lendol Calder of Augustana College (Illinois); prize-winning lecturer Howard Miller of the University of Texas at Austin; and Kevin Reilly of Raritan Valley Community College, a founder of the World History Association  known for successfully integrating scholarship, teaching and service to his institution and the profession. Katherine Hijar of California State University San Marcos, Aeleah Soine of Macalester College, and Kevin Reilly will moderate. The full program is listed below.

To attend this free workshop, participants must register for the AHA’s meeting.  Please click the following link to register for the meeting: AHA’s registration site. The workshop is limited in space to 100 participants.

Teaching Workshop: Recognizing Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

Thursday, January 6, 8:30 a.m.-3:45 p.m.

Hynes Convention Center (Boston), Room 110

8:45 a.m.-9:00 a.m. Introduction

9:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. How to Create an Undergraduate Course

Moderator: Katherine Hijar, California State University at San Marcos

Panel: Lendol G. Calder, Augustana College; Kevin Kenny, Boston College; Janice L. Reiif, University of California at Los Angeles; Stefan A. Tanaka, University of California at San Diego.

11:00 a.m.-11:15 a.m. Break

11:15 a.m.-12:15 pm. How to Become an Effective Lecturer

Moderator: Aeleah H. Soine, Macalester College

Panel: Guy Howard Miller, University of Texas at Austin; and George Derek Musgrove, University of the District of Columbia

12:15 p.m.-2:00 p.m. Lunch (not provided)

2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m.  How to balance Research, Teaching, and Service

Moderator: Kevin Reilly, Raitan Valley Community College

Panel: Bonnie Miller, University of Massachusetts at Boston; Kevin Reilly; and Peter N. Stearns, George Mason University

3:30 p.m.-3:45 p.m. Wrap-up

Philip Zelikow, University of Virginia, is presenting at the next National History Center-Wilson Center “Washington History Seminar” on Monday, November 22 at 4:00 pm at the Wilson Center. He will be discussing “Accidents and Axioms: The Curious History of U.S. Foreign Policy.”

The history of U.S. foreign policy has usually been told in order to spotlight recurrent purposes and dilemmas. American exceptionalism, open-door imperialism, realism vs. idealism – all are examples. Yet such schools of interpretation can obscure more than they reveal. They set up historians as judges whose verdicts become parables for the day’s debates. They attach common labels to disparate thought. They hypothesize collective purposefulness that was not there, imagine a government driving the action when it was reacting spasmodically to choices made by outsiders. The presentation speculates about how to make the narrative history of U.S. foreign policy a bit more, well, historical – yet still notice some distinguishing characteristics and patterns that really do cross time.

Philip Zelikow is the White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia. His books include The Kennedy Tapes (with Ernest May), Essence of Decision (with Graham Allison), and Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (with Condoleezza Rice). A former career diplomat, he served on the staff of the National Security Council and as director of the 9/11 Commission. He was also Counselor of the Department of State.

Reservations are requested because of limited seating.  To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103 or email.  The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center. Wm. Roger Louis and Christian Ostermann are the co-directors. The seminar meets weekly during the academic year, January to May and September to December. Click here for the schedule, speakers, topics, and dates as well as videos and podcasts. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

David A. Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley, gives the next seminar in the Washington History Seminar, exploring “The Protestant Boomerang: American Missionaries and United States” on Monday, November 15 at 4:00 pm at the Wilson Center.

American Protestant missionaries were heavily grounded in ethnocentric and imperialist impulses, but many returned to America as advocates of foreign peoples and as agents of anti-racist, anti-parochial, anti-imperialist causes. In one arena of American life after another, missionaries were among the most active in diminishing provincialism and in appreciating cultural diversity.

Click here for a video of his presentation.

David A. Hollinger is the Preston Hotchkis Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley, and is President of the Organization of American Historians. His books include Postethnic America (1995), Science, Jews, and Secular Culture (1996), and Cosmopolitanism and Solidarity (2006). His recent essays have appeared in the London Review of Books and the American Historical Review.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Reservations are requested because of limited seating.  To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103 or email.  The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center. Wm. Roger Louis and Christian Ostermann are the co-directors. The seminar meets weekly during the academic year, January to May and September to December. Click here for the schedule, speakers, topics, and dates as well as videos and podcasts. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

The next Washington History Seminar presentation features Sir Brian Harrison, University of Oxford, analyzing “How Special has the Anglo-American ‘Special Relationship’ Since 1945 Really Been?” on Monday, November 8, at 4:00 pm at the Wilson Center.

The seminar will begin by drawing out, in a threefold discussion, the ever-changing and flexible nature of the “special relationship” between the United Kingdom and the United States in its economic , political, and cultural dimensions.  It will identify the benefits and drawbacks of the U.S. connection as seen from the British perspective, and speculate about the relationship’s likely future direction.

Click here for a video of his presentation.

Sir Brian Harrison is the Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College of the University of Oxford.   He published his first book, Drink and the Victorians, in 1971, which was followed by books on British reform movements, feminism, and anti-feminism.  From 2000 to 2004, he was the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  His more recent publications include Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom, 1951-1970 (2009), and Finding a Role? The United Kingdom, 1970-1990 (2010), the two concluding volumes of The New Oxford History of England.

Reservations are requested because of limited seating.  To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103 or email.  The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center. Wm. Roger Louis and Christian Ostermann are the co-directors. The seminar meets weekly during the academic year, January to May and September to December. Click here for the schedule, speakers, topics, and dates as well as videos and podcasts. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

The next Washington History Seminar features Erin Mahan, Chief Historian of the U.S. Department of Defense, who will discuss “Weapons of Mass Destruction” on Monday, November 1st, at 4:00 pm at the Wilson Center.

After the anthrax letter attacks of 2001 and in the months leading to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the term “Weapons of Mass Destruction” became a national preoccupation. Policymakers and the public alike showed heightened awareness of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.  This talk will focus on a “lesser” WMD in the late 1960s and the largely forgotten episode of President Richard Nixon’s renouncement of the U.S. biological weapons program.

Before her recent appointment as Chief Historian of the Department of Defense, Erin Mahan was an Associate Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University.  She was also a historian at the Department of State, where she edited several Foreign Relations of the United States volumes.  Her publications include Kennedy, de Gaulle, and Western Europe (2002) and several articles on NATO, the Berlin Crisis, and U.S. and French foreign economic policies during the 1960s.  She is currently working on a case study of the origins of the Nonproliferation Treaty and is putting together a WMD reader.  She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Reservations are requested because of limited seating.  To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103 or by email.  The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center. Wm. Roger Louis and Christian Ostermann are the co-directors. The seminar meets weekly during the academic year, January to May and September to December. Click here for the schedule, speakers, topics, and dates as well as videos and podcasts. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Timothy H. Breen, the William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University, gives the next Washington History Seminar at the Wilson Center on Monday, October 25 at 4:00 pm with his presentation on “Ordinary People and the American Revolution.”

Unlike other revolutions that have transformed the modern world, popular narratives of the American Revolution focus commonly on a small group of Founding Fathers and on the political ideas they championed. Ordinary people resisted imperial rule, often without the support or knowledge of their leaders in the Continental Congress. This seminar presentation will explore a rumor that almost sparked revolution in 1774 and that nearly persuaded the Founding Fathers to adopt a more radical agenda.

T.H. Breen is the William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University. He is the author of eight books including American Insurgents- American Patriots: The Revolution of the People(2010), Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (2005); Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution (1985); and “Myne Own Ground”: Race and Freedom on Virginia’s Eastern Shore (with Stephen Innes, 1980). He is also the Director of the Nicholas D. Chabraja Center for Historical Studies at Northwestern University.

Reservations are requested because of limited seating. To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103 or email. The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center. Wm. Roger Louis and Christian Ostermann are the co-directors. The seminar meets weekly during the academic year, January to May and September to December. Click here for the schedule, speakers, topics, and dates as well as videos and podcasts. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Melvyn P. Leffler, the Edward Stettinius Professor of American History at the University of Virginia and currently a Wilson Center Fellow, presents “Cold War Legacies” at the next Washington Weekly Seminar on Monday, October 18 at 4:00 pm at the Wilson Center.

In the various interpretations of the end of the Cold War, lessons can be gleaned about defining threats, designing goals, setting priorities, and making tradeoffs.  What proved most important in the Cold War was not superior military capabilities, not artful foreign policies, and not sophisticated public diplomacy.  What proved most important was the capacity of the West to stabilize, adjust, and calibrate its political economy in ways that it had not done in the first half of the twentieth century.

Click here to see a video of his presentation.

Melvyn P. Leffler is the author of A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (1992), and For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (2008).  Most recently, he co-edited (with Odd Arne Westad) the three-volume Cambridge History of the Cold War (2010).

Reservations are requested because of limited seating.  To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103 or email.  The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center. Wm. Roger Louis and Christian Ostermann are the co-directors. The seminar meets weekly during the academic year, January to May and September to December. Click here for the schedule, speakers, topics, and dates as well as videos and podcasts. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.