Fall 2019 Events
Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order
December 10, 2019
Born from necessity, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has always seemed on the verge of collapse. At this moment of incipient strategic crisis, Timothy A. Sayle offers a sweeping history of the most critical alliance in the post-World War II era…
Chinese Exclusion and the Making of the Alien in America
December 5, 2019
Beth Lew-Williams is an associate professor of history and Philip and Beulah Rollins Bicentennial Preceptor at Princeton University. She is a historian of race and migration in the United States, specializing in Asian American history…
Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change
November 20, 2019
By 1979, we knew all that we know now about the science of climate change – what was happening, why it was happening, and how to stop it. Over the next ten years, we had the very real opportunity to stop it. Obviously, we failed…
THIRD RAIL SERIES: Does the Middle East Still Matter?
November 6, 2019
Oil tanker attacks. Invasions and civil wars. Daily headlines from the Middle East paint a picture of instability, while Middle East oil is being quickly replaced by American shale. The President has made it clear he wants out…but is it that simple?
Doing History Amidst History: An Army Historian’s Work to Document the War on Terror
October 30, 2019
A trained historian and career officer, in 2009-10, Lt. Col and Dr. Brian DeToy served as the Command Historian for the main coalition warfighting element in Iraq, overseeing the collection, preservation and dissemination of historical documents and senior command interviews to “tell” the story of America’s military in Operation Iraqi Freedom…
The Last Card in the Deck: Inside George W. Bush’s Decision to Surge in Iraq
October 22, 2019
This is the real story of how George W. Bush came to double-down on Iraq in the highest stakes gamble of his entire presidency. Drawing on extensive interviews with nearly thirty senior officials, including President Bush himself…
Alien Chinese Railroad Workers and American National History
October 3, 2019
Gordon H. Chang is a Professor of History and Senior Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He has written extensively on the histories of America-China relations, U.S. diplomacy, and Asian-American History…
Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War
September 26, 2019
What makes a good missionary makes a good spy. Or so thought “Wild” Bill Donovan when he launched a secret new program under the Office of Strategic Services. His recruits, in turn, believed an American victory would help them protect their foreign ministries and expand the kingdom of God…
The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty
September 11, 2019
Barbara Pierce Bush was one of the country’s most popular and powerful figures, yet her full story has never been told. The Matriarch tells the riveting tale of a woman who helped define two American presidencies and an entire political era….