The great American mission Ekbladh, David
2010., 20110808, 2011, 2009, 2010-01-01, 20100101, Volume:
6
eBook
The Great American Mission traces how America's global modernization efforts during the twentieth century were a means to remake the world in its own image. David Ekbladh shows that the emerging ...concept of modernization combined existing development ideas from the Depression. He describes how ambitious New Deal programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority became symbols of American liberalism's ability to marshal the social sciences, state planning, civil society, and technology to produce extensive social and economic change. For proponents, it became a valuable weapon to check the influence of menacing ideologies such as Fascism and Communism.
Security studies, as an American field of inquiry, has particular historical origins. Contrary to standard views, it was the unraveling of the international order in the 1930s that compelled a ...collection of internationalist institutions and individuals, led by historian Edward Mead Earle, to bind together a variety of new and traditional disciplines to create an entirely new field focused on the problem of security. These institutions and individuals not only sought to confront the crisis at hand by influencing public views, altering academic discussion, enhancing government capacity, and creating an American "grand strategy," but also to establish strong institutional and intellectual foundations for an enduring scholarly project that would contended with future national security problems generated by the modern world. In this effort, Earle and his foundation, government, and university collaborators had significant influence on the evolution of security studies as a field that are still felt today.
Before the outbreak of European war in 1939, figures in international development discourse struggled to disentangle it from the idea of 'economic appeasement'. How and when development emerged is a ...complicated question but a more important issue is how it was employed to achieve political ends. The concept was implicated in appeasement policy, itself part of a broader discourse on 'Peaceful Change'. Peaceful Change sought to sustain the liberal status quo and was marbled by colonial and raw materials issues. It offered to appease 'revisionist' powers through international economic development. Poorer (often colonial) areas were to be deliberately developed to support this vision. Adherents were found in Europe, Latin America, North America, Australia and New Zealand, many of which would support agendas of global development through global war and into cold war. Rejection of Peaceful Change did not mean these ideas were abandoned; rather they were turned into weapons to contain the revisionists and transmitted to centres working to sustain a liberal world order, particularly the United States. The detour of appeasement shows the mutability of concepts like development in differing historical circumstances and suggests attention to those contexts which inflect those concepts as much as search for origins.
American Asylum EKBLADH, DAVID
Diplomatic history,
09/2015, Volume:
39, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In 1939–1940, internationalists, with the approval of the Roosevelt administration, campaigned to transplant key technical organs of the League of Nations to the United States to aid in postwar ...planning and prevent fascist forces in Europe from co-opting the institution.
Security studies, as an American field of inquiry, has deeper historical roots than commonly accepted. Contrary to established narratives, it was the unravelling of the international order in the ...1930s that compelled a collection of internationalist institutions and individuals to reconsider their approaches to world affairs. A leading figure was Edward Mead Earle who bound together a variety of new and traditional disciplines to create an entirely new field focused on the problem of security with the goal of establishing a new grand strategy for the United States. In this campaign, Earle had considerable support from various sectors. Critically important was the continuing support of major foundations, specifically the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Collectively, these efforts had significant impacts on the evolution of security studies and are still felt today.
As American interests assumed global proportions after 1945, policy makers were faced with the challenge of prioritizing various regions and determining the extent to which the United States was ...prepared to defend and support them. Superpowers and developing nations soon became inextricably linked and decolonizing states such as Vietnam, India, and Egypt assumed a central role in the ideological struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. As the twentieth century came to an end, many of the challenges of the Cold War became even more complex as the Soviet Union collapsed and new threats arose.
Featuring original essays by leading scholars,Foreign Policy at the Peripheryexamines relationships among new nations and the United States from the end of the Second World War through the global war on terror. Rather than reassessing familiar flashpoints of US foreign policy, the contributors explore neglected but significant developments such as the efforts of evangelical missionaries in the Congo, the 1958 stabilization agreement with Argentina, Henry Kissinger's policies toward Latin America during the 1970s, and the financing of terrorism in Libya via petrodollars. Blending new, internationalist approaches to diplomatic history with newly released archival materials,Foreign Policy at the Peripherybrings together diverse strands of scholarship to address compelling issues in modern world history.
World War I was an epoch making event and its legacies have exerted dramatic impact on the unfolding of history as well as the study of history itself. The article introduces a commemorative volume ...focused on those varied legacies and their places in history.
