Applied History Project

Speaker: Lukas Paul Schmelter, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

The late 1960s marked a watershed in the history of West German foreign policy, as larger geopolitical forces reshaped the Cold War and West Germany's role in it. Amongst the politicians responding to these changes was Franz Josef Strauss, whose ideas presented a clear alternative to the course of Ostpolitik pursued by Bonn from 1969. This seminar will explore Strauss' strategic framework in the context of the domestic and international circumstances of the mid to late 1960s, and in doing so, address fundamental questions of post-war German foreign policy that remain relevant to the present day.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUvduyqqzstG9eqhQbiQxA9GT5Knnv3PzhT

Join the Applied History Project for a lecture and panel discussion featuring Paul Kennedy, the J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History at Yale University and celebrated author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Focusing on his new book Victory at Sea: Naval Power and the Transformation of the Global Order in World War II, Kennedy will explore how the great navies of WWII turned the globe upside down between 1936 and 1946—and what lessons this decade offers for today’s world.

As the world marks the 30th anniversary of one of the 20th century's most earthshaking developments—the collapse of the Soviet Union—join the Belfer Center's Applied History Project for an open session of our Applied History Working Group. Its members—distinguished historians and public servants—study the past to illuminate the most pressing challenges we face today.

As the United States grapples with a world changed by a rapidly rising China—and considers its own role by questioning how and why it grew into a postwar "superpower"—join the Belfer Center's Applied History Project for an open session of our Applied History Working Group. Its members—distinguished historians and public servants—study the past to illuminate the most pressing challenges we face today.

Speaker: Jayita Sarkar, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

How do the exports of U.S. power reactors relate to nonproliferation, global capitalism, and U.S. empire? And what does that tell us about the dominance by design of U.S. government and businesses in the decolonized world, where they promised development but delivered debt? This seminar pursues this inquiry through investigating the role of the light water reactor as an instrument of U.S. nonproliferation policy from the mid-1950s until the end of the 1980s.

Everyone is welcome to join us via Zoom! Register before the seminar here:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMscOyspz0uHdDEEReU3VaamAmpD7qRPMrO

Speaker: Graeme Thompson, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

Liberal ideas of foreign policy and international order helped to shape the British Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. From 1846, the Pax Britannica rested on an integrated world system characterized by naval supremacy, free trade, and increasing globalization. Yet after 1870, the geopolitical context shifted rapidly as Britain's "liberal empire" faced rising economic and military competitors, notably imperial Germany. How did liberal politicians and intellectuals grapple with the challenge to British global power? Could the catastrophe of the First World War have been avoided? Focusing on Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898), this seminar outlines liberal attempts to articulate and implement a grand strategy of restraint. 

Everyone is welcome to join us via Zoom! Register in advance for this meeting:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAvduqpqTwiHNSoXA6xfGs_yZYtCrfN_H9H

Speaker: Peter Slezkine, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

By the end of the Second World War, most American policymakers assumed that their country had become inescapably and durably entangled in the affairs of the globe. Half a decade later, they settled on an objective that would determine the direction of their country's international efforts going forward. Throughout the 1950s, as the United States established itself as a permanent player on the global stage, American policymakers pursued the overarching aim of "free world leadership." This seminar will trace the emergence and evolution of the concept of the "free world" in American history, demonstrate its impact on policymakers' understanding of the Cold War and the United States' global role, and investigate the shift to alternative perspectives (including one centered on the "third world") by the end of the 1960s. Finally, the seminar will address how the current U.S. global order has been durably shaped by its original focus on the "free world."

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Speaker: Ben Rhode, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

In 1898, France's military attaché in London recommended that his superiors make a secret agreement with his anonymous Irish nationalist informant in order to undermine the British Empire and counterbalance supposedly hostile British behavior. Most historical assessments have either overlooked or discounted this attaché's recommendation, considering him untrustworthy or unsober. Such an interpretation is initially appealing, especially given the bizarre and conspiratorial material in the informant's unpublished reports. This seminar will challenge prevailing scholarship that ignores or deprecates this recommendation or the attaché's credibility. It will locate the episode within the context of French concerns over Britain's exploitation of the Spanish-American War, the Dreyfus Affair, and Fashoda; a preoccupation with supposed national subversion; and alarm over the phenomenon of "fake news." Using this episode as a case study, it will argue for taking alarming or peculiar observations in the diplomatic record seriously: neither downplaying their strangeness nor overlooking how, within their context, they could be sincerely believed and hold deep appeal.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Speaker: Ben Rhode, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

This seminar will examine British diplomatic perceptions of Spain's defeat in 1898. It will explore British reactions to Spain's bitterness over being considered a "dying nation" and the supposedly close U.S.-UK relationship. It will discuss British concerns that Spain might fall under the influence of hostile states and that Spanish retaliatory actions could pose a strategic threat to the British Empire. In doing so, it will investigate understandings of national power, influence, and diplomacy at the fin de siècle.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Please join us for a panel discussion with Command Historian Dr. Michael Warner and Historian of GCHQ Professor Richard Aldrich, moderated by the International Security Program's Dr. Calder Walton and the Cyber Security Project's Director Dr. Michael Sulmeyer. This event is open to the public, but seating and admittance will be offered on a first come, first served basis.