This review is being written on a computer, at the heart of which is an electronic gadget—a “chip”—made up of billions of transistors and other tiny components. Once the review is written, I will email it to the editor, meaning that it will pass through a chain of more powerful computers, perhaps bounce off a…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Commentary: “The Long Shadow of World War II and the Holocaust”
In the immediate aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas terrorists that led to the slaughter of over 1,200 Israelis (mostly Jewish, but also Arab, plus foreign nationals) and the capture of over 240 hostages (with over 100 still in captivity three months later), politicians, journalists, and scholars alike began searching their memory…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable 15-23 on Franczak, Global Inequality and American Foreign Policy in the 1970s
The reviewers in this forum agree that Michael Franczak’s Global Inequality and American Foreign Policy in the 1970s is a “well researched” book that offers a “skillful synthesis,” as William Glen Gray puts it, of US approaches toward Third World efforts at global economic reform in the 1970s. Franczak’s analysis begins with the campaign for…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable 15-22 on Moore, China’s Next Act
Surfing in real time on the top of an epochal wave—China’s rise—Scott Moore’s book offers a sophisticated approach to the role of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in world affairs. Reviewers Matteo Dian and Angel Hsu concur that Moore offers an ambitious and nuanced take on the counteracting of cooperation and competition mainly between…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Review Essay 89: Pemberton on Cooling, Arming America through the Centuries
War seems to have attracted more scholarly interest through the years than virtually any other subject. Amazon lists upwards of 50,000 books for sale on World War II alone.[1] Vastly under-covered, on the other hand, has been the business of war—how its forces have been supplied, through what systems, by whom and at what cost.[2]
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable 15-21 on Hlatky, Deploying Feminism
The Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda, which was engendered by United Nations Security Council 1325, is now nearly a quarter-century old. Researchers have a solid evidence base on which to judge its implementation, and Stéfanie Von Hlatky’s work is part of a now-extensive research agenda on how it has evolved.[1] Specifically, Deploying Feminism speaks…
On the Passing of Tom Maddux
The H-Diplo and RJISSF Editorial Board and Editors are deeply saddened to share the news that Tom Maddux passed away on December 30, 2023. We offer our sincere condolences to his family. Tom joined ISSF when it was founded in 2009 and worked tirelessly to ensure its lasting success, as he had done for over…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Review Essay 87: Zeiler on Hadley, et al., Hand-Off
Around the middle of 2014, President Barack Obama reportedly noted to his traveling press corps on Air Force One that a hallmark of his foreign policy was “don’t do stupid sh*t.”[1] That realism contrasted to the previous administration of George W. Bush, an idealist who thought he could remake the world with American power. The…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable 15-20 on Johnson, The Third Option
On its face, covert action—which I define for my students as “secret attempts by one country to alter conditions and events in another country”—is immoral and violates international law. For citizens of nations that are targets of covert action, such operations reek of arrogance. Just ask those Americans who accept the evidence that Russia attempted…
H-Diplo|RJISSF Essay 538: Chandra Manning on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
Readers of H-Diplo will likely wonder “who is that?” when they see identity of the author of this essay since I am neither a historian of diplomacy nor a specialist in international relations. I am a historian of the nineteenth century United States who focuses on slavery, the Civil War, and emancipation, with a teaching…