New Research and Publications

The New Statesman
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers redux
September 20, 2023

Thirty-five years after its publication, Paul Kennedy reflects on the impact and prescience of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, considered one of the most important history books of the 20th century.

World History Connected
“Gone West Through the Tropics: The Isthmus of Panama and the History of the American West”
Summer 2023

Graydon Dennison uses Pacific prospectors of the nineteenth century and U.S. citizen-settlers of the twentieth century to argue that Panama served as both a conduit for and reproduction of the “taking of the West.”

The Anticolonial Transnational: Imaginaries, Mobilities, and Networks in the Struggle against Empire
“Beyond the NIEO: Self-Reliance as an Alternative Vision of Postcolonial Development”
August 2023

Vivien Chang shows how the UN Economic Commission for Africa conceptualized and propagated “self-reliance” as an alternative to models of development that sought to integrate newly decolonized nations into the global capitalist order.

Chang specializes in U.S. foreign relations, postcolonial Africa, Black internationalism, and the global economy.

Enterprise & Society
“An Exercise in the Art of the Possible”: Waging a Battle Against Apartheid in the South African Workplace”
July 25, 2023

Mattie Webb argues that South African workers in the last decade of Apartheid were not merely passive recipients of workplace reform, but rather active participants, shaping the form and direction of US and South African policy.

A historian of the United States and southern Africa, Webb’s research explores the history of the anti-apartheid movement by considering the impact of U.S. business reform on South African workers, particularly those employed by U.S. multinationals.

Foreign Affairs
“How America Broke Its War Machine”
July 3, 2023

Privatization and the hollowing out of the U.S. defense industry over many decades, Michael Brenes argues, have hamstrung the United States’ ability to deliver weapons to Ukraine and enhance the country’s defense capabilities more broadly.

Brenes’ research interests include 20th-century United States foreign policy, political history, and political economy.

Texas National Security Review
“The Origins of the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait Reconsidered”
Summer 2023

Daniel Chardell examines the reasons for Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, finding that he overestimated and misinterpreted US power in the immediate post-Cold War era.

Chardell specializes in the history of U.S. foreign relations, the Middle East, and the Cold War.

Perspectives on History
“The Imperial Daiquiri: A Brief History of American Empire in One Cocktail”
June 14, 2023

Rum, lime, sugar. Ian Seavey traces the daiquiri from Europe’s colonization of the Americas, through the US imperial project in the Caribbean, the Cold War, and beyond, showing it be a cultural touchstone.

Seavey’s research examines U.S. empire in the Caribbean through the lens of disaster relief, environmental policy, and rum production.

Foreign Affairs
“What Does the West Really Know About Xi’s China?”
June 13, 2023

Arne Westad sheds light on why outsiders struggle to understand Beijing’s decision-making.

Westad is a scholar of modern international and global history, with a specialization in the history of eastern Asia since the 18th century. He has published 16 books, most of which deal with twentieth century Asian and global history.

International Affairs
“Ideology, grand strategy and the rise and decline of Ethiopia’s regional status”
May 2023

Goitom Gebreluel analyzes the grand strategies that have shaped Ethiopia’s regional power status in the twenty-first century.

Gebreluel specializes in the international and comparative politics of the Horn of Africa.