Applied History Project

Speaker: Stephen Buono, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

After the Soviet Union launched the world's first satellite—Sputnik I—in 1957, U.S. military officials began thinking about the cosmos as a vast new theater of war. Convinced that a techno-saturated space war was just around the bend, far-flung laboratories and offices under the Department of Defense began planning for it.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIldO-vpzwtE9Lu85mJOOJfpNtFVHhSAPiS

Speaker: Nate Grau, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

This seminar traces the evolution of France's Cold War counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine from the Second World War to France's 1954 defeat in Indochina. Grau reveals the underappreciated roles of civilian colonial reformers in this process, tracing a network of "Free French" policymakers circulating from Algeria to the French wars in Madagascar (1947–1948) and Indochina (1945–1954). In each of these revolutionary independence struggles, reformist plans to encourage economic growth and develop local state capacity became tools of counterinsurgent repression that only escalated inter-communal cycles of violence.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAud-qurjkpE9LULcdi7fEzEUmflmTOWvYC

Speaker: Grant Golub, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

This presentation traces how the War Department shifted from the fringes to the center of U.S. government power during World War II and examines how it sought to influence U.S. politics and grand strategy through its attempts to gain leverage over its bureaucratic rivals and compete to achieve its preferred policy outcomes.  

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0pd--pqjoiGdLIB9nJtv_yO1BPePsSoZJN

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.

Speaker: Andrew Porwancher, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

As Theodore Roosevelt launched his re-election bid for the White House, Russian-American relations took center stage. Russia was then denying visas to U.S. passport–holders of Jewish faith, and the "Passport Question" became a critical issue for Jewish voters. This seminar will explore Roosevelt's strategic, and often secretive, campaign to leverage diplomacy at the ballot box.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0qfu6trToiHtFzUuzqYHFQjRDWxl98jzMg 

Speaker: Vivien L. Chang, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

What role(s) did sub-Saharan African elites play in the movement for a New International Economic Order? After achieving postcolonial statehood, African statesmen, intellectuals, and diplomats sought to leverage their newfound representation within regional and international organizations into political and economic power. Central to their efforts was the imperative to attain an equitable share of the world's wealth and resources. This presentation traces how this vision of anticolonial unity and economic sovereignty evolved and expanded through its interactions with national bureaucracies, international agencies, and grassroots organizations in the 1960s and 1970s.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwtcOirpzkuHNUZwH7sNHckBOvZg48ZKqKn 

Speaker: Barnaby Crowcroft, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

The historical debate over the British empire tends to be preoccupied with its role — whether for good or for ill — in spreading some form of "liberal modernity" throughout its territories. However, this has tended to neglect the much wider British practice of empire through alliance, treaty, and protection-style arrangements, which had little if any connection with liberal reform. This presentation will introduce this "other" British empire, discuss some of its primary locations, institutions, and motivating ideas and reflect upon its possible lessons for international and foreign policy.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcscOGgpj8rHNJuCVOSMvoqXABgfshFxBbn

As the U.S. and the world struggle to surmount the twin health and economic disasters sparked by COVID-19—and as forward-looking leaders contemplate how to avoid making similar mistakes in future crises—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.

Join Russia Matters and the Applied History Working Group for a discussion with Fiona Hill, the Robert Bosch Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council.

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.