History Does You

The period between 1492--resonant for a number of reasons--and 1571, when the Ottoman navy was defeated in the Battle of Lepanto, embraces what we know as the Renaissance, one of the most dynamic and creatively explosive epochs in world history. Here is the period that gave rise to so many great artists and figures, and which by its connection to its classical heritage enabled a redefinition, even reinvention, of human potential. It was a moment both of violent struggle and great achievement, of Michelangelo and da Vinci as well as the Borgias and Machiavelli. At the hub of this cultural and intellectual ferment was Italy. To explore this period, we interview Dr. Catherine Fletcher who is a historian of Renaissance and early modern Europe. She has written numerous books including The Beauty and the Terror, The Black Prince of Florence, and Our Man in Rome/The Divorce of Henry VIII. She has also lectured at Durham University, the University of Sheffield, and Swansea University. In January 2020 she became Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University.

1774 was the critical, and often overlooked, period when colonists traditionally loyal to King George III began their discordant “discussions” that led them to their acceptance of the inevitability of war against the British Empire. Late in the year, conservatives mounted a vigorous campaign criticizing the First Continental Congress. But by then it was too late. In early 1775, colonial governors informed officials in London that they were unable to thwart the increasing power of local committees and their allied provincial congresses. Although the Declaration of Independence would not be formally adopted until July 1776, Americans had in effect “declared independence ” even before the outbreak of war in April 1775 .To help explain we interview Dr. Mary Beth Norton who is an American historian, specializing in American colonial history and well known for her work on women's history and the Salem witch trials. She is the Mary Donlon Professor Emeritus of American History at Cornell University. She was elected as president-elect of the American Historical Association in summer 2016. She served as president-elect during calendar 2017 and as president in 2018. Her book Founding Mothers and Fathers was a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize. She recently wrote 1774: The Long Year of Revolution, which was A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

The Battle of Aachen was a major combat action of World War II, fought by American and German forces in and around Aachen, Germany, between 2–21 October 1944. The city had been incorporated into the Siegfried Line, the main defensive network on Germany's western border; the Allies had hoped to capture it quickly and advance into the industrialized Ruhr Basin. Although most of Aachen's civilian population was evacuated before the battle began, much of the city was destroyed and both sides suffered heavy losses. It was one of the largest urban battles fought by U.S. forces in World War II, and the first city on German soil to be captured by the Allies. The battle ended with a German surrender, but their tenacious defense significantly disrupted Allied plans for the advance into Germany. Incorporating after action reports and first hand accounts, we retell the story of Aachen from the generals to the regular soldiers of the First Infantry Division

Once the darling of U.S. statesmen, corporate elites, and academics, the People's Republic of China has evolved into America's most challenging strategic competitor. Its future appears increasingly dystopian. To wrap up our series and explain some of the basics of Chinese Grand Strategy, we interview Dr. Dan Blumenthal is a resident fellow and the director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. He has served in and advised the US government on China issues for more than a decade. Before joining AEI, he served as senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the US Department of Defense. He served as a commissioner on the congressionally mandated US-China Economic and Security Review Commission from 2006 to 2012, and he was vice chairman of the commission in 2007. He also served on the Academic Advisory Board of the congressional US-China Working Group. He is the author of “The China Nightmare: The Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State” and coauthor of An Awkward Embrace: The United States and China in the 21st Century. Link to book below! https://www.amazon.com/China-Nightmare-Dan-Blumenthal/dp/084475031X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=dan+blumenthal&qid=1616291163&sr=8-1

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has unleashed a powerful set of political and economic reforms: the centralization of power under Xi, himself, the expansion of the Communist Party's role in Chinese political, social, and economic life, and the construction of a virtual wall of regulations to control more closely the exchange of ideas and capital between China and the outside world. Beyond its borders, Beijing has recast itself as a great power, seeking to reclaim its past glory and to create a system of international norms that better serves its more ambitious geostrategic objectives. We also explore some of the most current issues including COVID, Hong Kong, and the upcoming Olympics. To help explain all of this, we interview Dr. Elizabeth Economy who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Hoover Institute. She has written numerous books on China including The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State. She is also author of By All Means Necessary: How China's Resource Quest is Changing the World with Michael Levi and The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future. She has published articles and scholarly journals in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the Harvard Business Review, and op-eds in the New York Times and Washington Post, among others. In June 2018, she was named one of the “10 Names That Matter on China Policy” by Politico Magazine.

Few books have had a wider sustained impact than Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. More than 2,500 years after it was written, Thucydides is still read by academics, students, and policymakers looking for enduring lessons into everything from grand strategy to domestic politics and human nature. We apply those same lessons to the US-China relationship and what they might tell us about the future. To further explore, we interview Dr. Andrew Novo who is an Associate Professor of Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, Washington, D.C. An expert in ancient and modern European history and strategic studies, He also teaches for the Johns Hopkins University program in Global Security Studies and the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. He recently cowrote Restoring Thucydides: Testing familiar lessons and deriving new ones (2020) with Dr. Jay Parker. A regular contributor to the D.C. think tank circuit, presenting at the Brookings Institute, the Atlantic Council, and the European Institute of the Mediterranean. In addition, he also lectures widely in Europe and the United States, including at the University of Oxford, NATO Defense College (Rome), the University of Torino (Turin), the University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki), the United States Military Academy, and the United States Naval Academy.

At the end of World War II, General George Marshall took on what he thought was a final mission―this time not to win a war, but to stop one. In China, conflict between Communists and Nationalists threatened to suck in the United States and escalate into revolution. Marshall’s charge was to cross the Pacific, broker a peace, and prevent a Communist takeover, all while staving off World War III. At first, the results seemed miraculous. But as they started to come apart, Marshall was faced with a wrenching choice―one that would alter the course of the Cold War, define the US-China relationship, and spark one of the darkest-ever turns in American politics. To help explain this aspect of the U.S. China relationship we interview Daniel Kurtz-Phelan is Editor of Foreign Affairs. He previously spent three years as Executive Editor of the magazine and served in the U.S. State Department, including as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff. His book on George Marshall’s post­–World War II mission to China, The China Mission, was published in 2018 and named a best book of the year by The Economist and an editor’s pick by The New York Times Book Review. His writing has also appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. We also explore the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Nixon opening, all of which had a large impact on shaping modern U.S.-China relations.

The U.S.-China relationship is increasingly becoming under scrutiny because of China's increasingly powerful economy and military. The relationship between the two countries has been complex, and varied from positive to highly negative. The relationship is of economic cooperation, hegemonic rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, and mutual suspicion over each other's intentions. Each nation has adopted a wary attitude regarding the other as a potential adversary but has meanwhile maintained an extremely strong economic partnership. To help explain some of the important aspects of the relationship and the region, we interview Dr. Zack Cooper who is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies US strategy in Asia, including alliance dynamics and US-China competition. He also teaches at Georgetown University and Princeton University, codirects the Alliance for Securing Democracy, and cohosts the “Net Assessment” podcast. He is currently writing a book that explains how to predict the future path of US-China military competition by examining how militaries change during power shifts. Before joining AEI, He was the senior fellow for Asian security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He also served as assistant to the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism at the National Security Council and as a special assistant to the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy at the Department of Defense.

The Road to the Vietnam War has been scrutinized by historians for decades offering a variety of explanations on how the U.S. became involved a war that most concluded was unwinnable by 1966, only a year after combat troops had been deployed. We explore the cataclysmic decisions of those in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to explain why the "Best and the Brightest" became trapped in situations that suffocated their thinking and willingness to dissent, why they found change so hard, and why they were so blind to their own errors. To explain we interview Dr. Brian VanDeMark who is a professor of history at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis where he has been a member of its History Department since 1990. He is the author of several books on American history, he co-authored Robert McNamara's #1 best-selling Vietnam memoir, In Retrospect, which became the basis of Errol Morris's Academy Award-winning documentary film, "The Fog of War." He also wrote Pandora's Keepers: Nine Men and the Atomic Bomb and Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. His most recent book is Road to Disaster: A New History of America's Descent into Vietnam which was a Financial Times Best Book of the year in 2018

There is the saying that, "History is written by the victors". For the Central Powers, the First World War started with high hopes for an easy victory. But those hopes soon deteriorated as Germany's attack on France failed, Austria-Hungary's armies suffered catastrophic losses, and Britain's ruthless blockade brought both nations to the brink of starvation. We examine the war from the perspective of the losers, how scholarship looks at their role in the leadup to the war, their participation, and the subsequent aftermath. The war shattered their societies, destroyed their states, and imparted a poisonous legacy of bitterness and violence that sowed the seeds for an even deadlier conflict that would follow only two decades later. To help explain, We interview Dr. Alexander Watson who is a Professor of History at the University of London specializing in conflict and identity in East-Central Europe. His latest book is The Fortress: The Great Siege of Przemysl. He is also the author of the widely acclaimed Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918. The book won the 2014 Wolfson History Prize, the 2014 Gilder Lehrman Prize in Military History, the Society for Military History’s 2015 Distinguished Book Award and the 2015 British Army Military Book of the Year.