Rethinking American Grand Strategy

Edited by Elizabeth Borgwardt, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Andrew Preston

Broadens the range of topics treated historically as part of grand strategy, as well as the range of experts offering the analysis
Offers depth around questions such as why history matters in specific sets of contexts
Brings together a group of preeminent scholars, many of the best and most well-regarded thinkers in the field today, to construct a historically rich account of how Grand Strategy has developed and operated in American history

Rethinking American Grand Strategy

Edited by Elizabeth Borgwardt, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Andrew Preston

Description

A wide-ranging rethinking of the many factors that comprise the making of American Grand Strategy.

What is grand strategy? What does it aim to achieve? And what differentiates it from normal strategic thought--what, in other words, makes it "grand"? In answering these questions, most scholars have focused on diplomacy and warfare, so much so that "grand strategy" has become almost an equivalent of "military history." The traditional attention paid to military affairs is understandable, but in today's world it leaves out much else that could be considered political, and therefore strategic. It is in fact possible to consider, and even reach, a more capacious understanding of grand strategy, one that still includes the battlefield and the negotiating table while expanding beyond them. Just as contemporary world politics is driven by a wide range of non-military issues, the most thorough considerations of grand strategy must consider the bases of peace and security--including gender, race, the environment, and a wide range of cultural, social, political, and economic issues.

Rethinking American Grand Strategy assembles a roster of leading historians to examine America's place in the world. Its innovative chapters re-examine familiar figures, such as John Quincy Adams, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger, while also revealing the forgotten episodes and hidden voices of American grand strategy. They expand the scope of diplomatic and military history by placing the grand strategies of public health, race, gender, humanitarianism, and the law alongside military and diplomatic affairs to reveal hidden strategists as well as strategies.

Rethinking American Grand Strategy

Edited by Elizabeth Borgwardt, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Andrew Preston

Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction- Christopher McKnight Nichols and Andrew Preston
I. Frameworks
1. Getting Grand Strategy Right: Clearing Away Common Fallacies in the Grand Strategy Debate- Hal Brands
2. The Blob and the Mob: On Grand Strategy and Social Change- Beverly Gage
3. Turning the Tide: The Application of Grand Strategy to Global Health- Elizabeth H. Bradley and Lauren A. Taylor
II. Historical Grand Narratives
4. Extending the Sphere: A Federalist Grand Strategy- Charles Edel
5. Grand Strategy of the Master Class: Slavery and Foreign Policy from the Antebellum Era to the Civil War-Matthew Karp
6. A Useful Category of Analysis? Grand Strategy and US Foreign Relations from the Civil War through World War I- Katherine C. Epstein
7. Grand Strategies (or Ascendant Ideas) since 1919- David Milne
III. Recasting Central Figures
8. Woodrow Wilson, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Beyond: American Internationalists and the Crucible of World War I-I- Christopher McKnight Nichols
9. Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal, and Grand Strategy: Constructing the Postwar Order- Elizabeth Borgwardt
10. Foreign Policy Begins at Home: Americans, Grand Strategy, and World War II- Michaela Hoenicke Moore
11. National Security as Grand Strategy: Edward Mead Earle and the Burdens of World Power- Andrew Preston
12. The Misanthropy Diaries: Containment, Democracy, and the Prejudices of George Frost Kennan- David Greenberg
13. Implementing Grand Strategy: The Nixon-Kissinger Revolution at the National Security Council- William Inboden
14. George H.W. Bush: Strategy and the Stream of History- Jeffrey A. Engel
IV. New Approaches
15. Foreign Missions and Strategy, Foreign Missions as Strategy- Emily Conroy-Krutz
16. The Unbearable Whiteness of Grand Strategy- Adriane Lentz-Smith
17. Rival Visions of Nationhood: Immigration Policy, Grand Strategy, and Contentious Politics- Daniel J. Tichenor
18. Disastrous Grand Strategy: US Humanitarian Assistance and Global Natural Catastrophe- Julia F. Irwin
19. Denizens of a Center: Rethinking Early Cold War Grand Strategy- Ryan Irwin
20. Reproductive Politics and Grand Strategy- Laura Briggs
V. Reflections from the American Century
21. Casualties and the Concept of Grandness: A View from the Korean War- Mary L. Dudziak
22. American Grand Strategy: How Grand Has It Been? How Much Does It Matter?- Fredrik Logevall
Index

Rethinking American Grand Strategy

Edited by Elizabeth Borgwardt, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Andrew Preston

Author Information

Elizabeth Borgwardt, Associate Professor of History and Law, Washington University in St. Louis, Christopher McKnight Nichols, Director of the Center for the Humanities and Associate Professor of History, Oregon State University, Andrew Preston, Professor of American History, University of Cambridge.

Elizabeth Borgwardt is an associate professor of history and law at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of A New Deal for the World: America's Vision for Human Rights.

Christopher McKnight Nichols is Director of the Center for the Humanities and Associate Professor of History at Oregon State University and the author of Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age.

Andrew Preston is Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge and the author of Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy and American Foreign Relations: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2019), among other books.

Contributors:

Elizabeth Borgwardt, Washington University in St. Louis
Christopher McKnight Nichols, Oregon State University
Andrew Preston, Cambridge University

Elizabeth H. Bradley, Vassar College
Hal Brands, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University
Laura Briggs, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Emily Conroy-Krutz, Michigan State University
Mary L. Dudziak, Emory University
Charles Edel, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Jeffrey A. Engel, Southern Methodist University
Katherine C. Epstein, Rutgers University-Camden
Beverly Gage, Yale University
David Greenberg, Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Michaela Hoenicke Moore, University of Iowa
William Inboden, University of Texas at Austin
Julia F. Irwin, University of South Florida
Ryan Irwin, University of Albany
Matthew Karp, Princeton University
Adriane Lentz-Smith, Duke University
Fredrik Logevall, Harvard University
David Milne, University of East Anglia
Lauren A. Taylor
Daniel Tichenor, University of Oregon

Rethinking American Grand Strategy

Edited by Elizabeth Borgwardt, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Andrew Preston

Reviews and Awards

"I have never seen the words 'grand strategy' and 'global health' in the same sentence, much less an exploration of race and grand strategy. Rethinking Grand Strategy is not what you likely expect, and is far better for it. It is a genuine step toward changing what we think about when we think about grand strategy and who does the thinking." -- Anne-Marie Slaughter, Professor Emerita, Princeton University

"This is a terrific collection on the highs and lows of US grand strategy and the debate over its significance. Giving ample room for dissenting voices, the volume reaffirms the necessity of strategic thinking for producing favorable outcomes on issues ranging from national security to reproductive politics." -- O.A. Westad, Yale University