Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-g7rbq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-01T19:46:21.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Historical Studies in American Internationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Get access

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The most important analyses of isolationism are Adler, Selig, The Isolationist Impulse: Its Twentieth Century Reaction (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1957)Google Scholar; and Jonas, Manfred, Isolationism in America: 1935–1941 (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1966)Google Scholar. Both of these books stress the complexity of isolationism.

2 Although her book was published at approximately the same time as Kuehl's, Herman was apparently aware of Kuehl's approach. She acknowledges his “challenging comparisons” in her preface (p. x).

3 Tönnies, Ferdinand, Community and Society (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft), trans, and ed. by Loomis, Charles P. (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1965), pp. 3334, quoted in Herman, p. 8Google Scholar.

4 Her statement can be equally applied to the writings of historians, and Herman makes no grand pretensions to “objectivity.” Indeed, few historians—or social scientists—are so clearheaded or so honest about the underlying assumptions of their own work as Herman who admits that she is searching for a “usable past” (p. vii).

5 It should be added that the Wilsonians, who defended order no less than the conservatives, believed that self-determination would enhance it. Without self-determination nationalist revolutions could be expected along the lines of the Serbian disorders of July 1914.

6 Herman, pp. 24–25, 28–33. Kuehl also mentions the Supreme Court analogy in discussing the legalists (pp. 54, 89, 126–127). See also Marchand, Charles, “The Ultimate Reform: World Peace in American Thought During the Progressive Era” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1964)Google Scholar.

7 The quotation is from a speech by Root, given on August 16, 1918, printed in Jessup, Philip C., Elihu Root (2 vols.; New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1938), Vol. I, p. 378Google Scholar. Quoted in Herman, p. 47; italics added by Herman.

8 Kennan, George F., American Diplomacy: 1900–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951)Google Scholar; and Osgood, Robert E., Ideals and Self-interest in America's Foreign Relations: The Great Transformation of the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953)Google Scholar.

9 Mayer, Arno J., Political Origins of the New Diplomacy: 1917–1918 (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1959)Google Scholar. Mayer's thesis, originally considered highly controversial, has gained wide acceptance during the last decade.

10 The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Baker, Ray Stannard and Dodd, William E. (6 vols.; New York: Harper, 19251927), Vol. 5, p. 289Google Scholar; quoted in Herman, p. 204.

11 See Mayer, ; and Levin, N. Gordon Jr, Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America's Response to War and Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

12 The relationship of public opinion to international affairs in the minds of the internationalists needs considerably more study. Indeed, among historians the concept of public opinion is little more understood today than twenty years ago in spite of some excellent work by social scientists. The most important studies are: Benson, Lee, “An Approach to the Scientific Study of Past Public Opinion,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Winter 19671968 (Vol. 31, No. 4), pp. 522567CrossRefGoogle Scholar; May, Ernest R., American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1968)Google Scholar; by the same author, “An American Tradition in Foreign Policy: The Role of Public Opinion,” in Theory and Practice in American Politics, ed. Nelson, William H., with the collaboration of Loewenheim, Francis L. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press [for William Marsh Rice University], 1964), pp. 101122Google Scholar; and Small, Melvin, ed., Public Opinion and Historians: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Detroit, Mich: Wayne State University Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

13 The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Link, Arthur S. (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1966–)Google Scholar.

14 In 1933 and 1934 he served as president of the League of Nations Association of the United States; he resigned to become president of the Rockefeller Foundation.

15 See also Fosdick, pp. 121–122.

16 See also his statement of April 11, 1920, on pp. 124–126.

17 In addition others had earlier covered the narrative of United States-League of Nations relations. See especially Berdahl, Clarence A., Policy of the United States with respect to the League of Nations (Geneva: Librairie Kundig, 1932)Google Scholar; two articles by the same author are also relevant—Relations of the United States with the Assembly of the League of Nations,” American Political Science Review, 02 1932 (Vol. 26, No. 1), pp. 99111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Relations of the United States with the Council of the League of Nations,” American Political Science Review, 06 1932 (Vol. 26, No. 3), pp. 497526CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 The Department of State before February 1932 consistently discouraged any appeal to the Treaty Relating to Principles and Policies to be Followed in Matters Concerning China, signed at Washington, February 6, 1922 (Nine-Power Treaty) thereby hoping to utilize it as a last resort. But this policy in turn left the League in the dark concerning the degree of cooperation which might be expected from the United States. Washington wanted the League, not the United States, to take the lead in opposing Japan; hence it argued that the covenant was the appropriate instrument for action. The League sought to involve the United States and therefore desired to invoke the Nine-Power Treaty. The result was inaction. See Ferrell, Robert H., American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929–1933 (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1957), pp. 180185Google Scholar; Rappaport, Armin, Henry L. Stimson and Japan: 1931–33 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963)Google Scholar ; or my own dissertation entitled “The United States, the League of Nations, and Collective Security, 1931–1934” (Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester, 1970), pp. 103, 184Google Scholar.

19 A dear statement of such thinking comes from an American in the League of Nations Secretariat: “If it is charged that the League is powerless because of lack of actual military or naval forces, it may easily be retorted that it possesses against a Covenant-breaking state a force far more subtle and more powerful, the force of economic strangulation.” Sweetser, Arthur, The League of Nations at Work (New York: Macmillan Co., 1920), p. 175Google Scholar.

20 The story of Stimson's diplomacy is very adequately described in Fleming's book.

21 In 1932 the United Kingdom refused to consider any sanctions against Japan without United States cooperation. United States policy was interpreted as “submissiveness.” See especially a minute by SirVansittart, Robert in Documents on British Foreign Policy: 1919–1939, ed. Dakin, Douglas and Lambert, M. E. (2nd Series, Vol. 9) (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1965), pp. 282283Google Scholar; also Thorne, Christopher, “The Shanghai Crisis of 1932: The Basis of British Policy,” American Historical Review, 10 1970 (Vol. 75, No. 4), pp. 16161639CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 After he left office Stimson became one of the leading American advocates of collective security. To understand his position in the mid-1930s see Stimson, Henry L., The Far Eastern Crisis: Recollections and Observations (New York: Harper and Brothers [for the Council on Foreign Relations], 1936)Google Scholar. His vigorous support of collective security can also be seen in his letter to the New York Times, October 11. 1935. p. 24.

23 Fleming, , The Cold War and Its Origins: 1917–1960 (2 vols.; Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday & Co., 1961)Google Scholar. This book provides, together with Williams, William Appleman, Tragedy of American Diplomacy (Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Company, 1959)Google Scholar, the basis from which much of the revisionist historiography of the cold war has been written. It is interesting to compare Fleming's pre-World War II and postwar writings. What remains absolutely constant is his passionate commitment to a peaceful world; ironically, by 1961 his condemnation of American isolationism had turned into a bitterness directed at American internationalism, a globalism which Fleming blamed for creating international antagonism.

24 Williams, pp. 118–123, “rehabilitates” Senator William Borah while a recent article by the same author, A Vote for Herbert Hoover,” New York Review of Books, 11 5, 1970 (Vol. 15, No. 9), pp. 711Google Scholar, similarly treats President Herbert Hoover. Although a Marxist, Williams interprets Hoover much more favorably than the generation of “liberal” or “consensus” historians who preceded him.

25 Higham, John, “Beyond Consensus: The Historian as Moral Critic,” American Historical Review, 04 1962 (Vol. 67, No. 3), pp. 609622CrossRefGoogle Scholar, brilliantly discusses the relationship of the historian to the moral dimension of history.

26 On page 330 Kuehl uses rough statistical data. Herman provides some very interesting insights about what the institutionalists thought public opinion represented; sec Herman, pp. 40–42.

27 Three historians—Christopher Thorne, Robert A. Hecht, and myself—are currently working on this subject as it pertains to the Manchurian crisis, but much remains to be done for other years.

28 Among the more important books of the last decade are: Glad, Betty, Charles Evans Hughes and the Illusions of Innocence: A Study in American Diplomacy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Ellis, L. Ethan, Frank B. Kellogg and American Foreign Relations: 1925–29 (New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; by the same author, Republican Foreign Policy: 1921–1933 (New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Iriye, Akira, After Imperialism: The Search for a New Order in the Far East: 1921–1931 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar; and Rappaport. Two survey works for the period which are broader than Fleming's book are Adler, Selig, The Uncertain Giant, 1921–1941: American Foreign Policy Between the Wars (New York: Macmillan Co., 1965)Google Scholar; and Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste, From Wilson to Roosevelt: Foreign Policy of the United States, 1913–1945, trans, by Roelker, Nancy Lyman (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1963)Google Scholar. The only book which deals specifically with the League of Nations is Stromberg, Roland N., Collective Security and American Foreign Policy: From the League of Nations to NATO (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963)Google Scholar.