Hill and Wang, 2020
Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography
Henry Kissinger is the most famous and controversial American diplomat of the 20th century.听 Most previous studies focus on Kissinger鈥檚 ideas, his realpolitik ideology of foreign policy, policies that enhanced America鈥檚 political and military power and neglected values such as human rights and democratic reform.听 In contrast, author Thomas Schwartz approaches Kissinger as a political actor, an adviser to Presidents who understood the centrality of domestic politics to foreign policy within the American system, and who adjusted his perspectives and recommendations accordingly. 听
Date & Time
Overview
The Annual Wm. Roger Louis Lecture
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Henry Kissinger is the most famous and controversial American diplomat of the 20th century.听 Most previous studies focus on Kissinger鈥檚 ideas, his realpolitik ideology of foreign policy, policies that enhanced America鈥檚 political and military power and neglected values such as human rights and democratic reform.听 In contrast, Schwartz approaches Kissinger as a political actor, an adviser to Presidents who understood the centrality of domestic politics to foreign policy within the American system, and who adjusted his perspectives and recommendations accordingly. 听 Schwartz also examines Kissinger鈥檚 skillful manipulation of the media, becoming America鈥檚 first celebrity diplomat, and enhancing his personal power and prestige.听 The tension between Kissinger鈥檚 own recognition of the limits of American power with his determination to exercise that power is central to understanding the significance of Henry Kissinger for the history of American foreign policy.
Thomas Schwartz is the Distinguished Professor History at Vanderbilt University.听 Educated at Columbia, Oxford, and Harvard Universities, he is the author of America鈥檚 Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany (1991), Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (2003), and with Matthias Schulz, The Strained Alliance: U.S. - European Relations From Nixon to Carter (2009) He is a past President of the Society for the History of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), and served on the State Department鈥檚 Historical Advisory Committee.
The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University and the National History Center) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is organized jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Woodrow Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year. The seminar thanks its anonymous individual donors and institutional partners (the George Washington University History Department and the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest) for their continued support.
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Moderators
Christian F. Ostermann
Woodrow Wilson Center
Eric Arnesen
Professor of History, The George Washington University. Director, National History Center of the American Historical Association.
Panelists
Barbara Keys
Professor of US听and International History, Durham University
Diane B. Kunz
Jeremi Suri
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History and Public Policy Program
The History and Public Policy Program听makes public the primary source record of 20th and 21st century international history from repositories around the world, facilitates scholarship based on those records, and uses these materials to provide context for classroom, public, and policy debates on global affairs. Read more
Cold War International History Project
The Cold War International History Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War. Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporary听legacies.听It is part of 澳门六合彩's History and Public Policy Program. Read more
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