What is History?

Democratic Vista TAH projectDecember 2009

• History is what we do to the past in the present.

• History is the stories we tell about the past.

• History is the imaginative recreation of the past in the present.

• History is argument, argument comes from evidence, evidence comes from the “text.”

Today . . .

• Where history of American foreign relations is moving

• Some thoughts on teaching the Cold War

• Vietnam Wars• End of the Cold War• US and the Middle East• History and memory of America’s

interactions with the world

Diplomatic History v. History of American Foreign Relations

• “diplomatic” = state to state• “International History” is too broad• American Foreign Relations: just

right– Governments, peoples, NGO’s,

economies, cultures, international groups

Three strands of the Cold War

• Ideological• Economic• Strategic

– Cold War Lenses

Just as important . . .

• The Cold War was fought at home– Leffler’s book

• And domestic politics influenced how it was fought abroad

Our Five Questions1. Why did the Cold War start?

- Could it have been prevented? Can we assign “blame” for the Cold War?

2. Why did it last so long?- Were the times when leaders could have lessened tensions or ended it

earlier? 3. Why did it influence so many aspects of America’s culture and politics?

- What made the Cold War resonate with Americans? 4. Why did it end when and how it did?

- How do we explain the end of the Cold War? 5. What lessons and meanings can and should we take from the Cold War?

- Is it possible to learn and apply these lessons to today’s world?

McCarthyism• Sen. Joseph McCarthy

– Republican from Wisconsin

• Manifestation of public feeling

• Big Lie• Blacklists• Army-McCarthy

Hearings (1954)

Influence of Cold War on Culture

Movies

Cold War resources

• Movie• Cartoon• Duck and Cover• Music

Shaping the Cold War narrative

• Civil Rights reform was in part a product of the Cold War

• Problems created by the lack of rights

• Perception of problems what motivated policymakers

• NARRATIVE: democracy made the achievement of justice possible

Sputnik

• October 1957• NASA (1958)• Crisis of

confidence

Key Areas of Early Conflict

• Berlin• NATO & Warsaw

Pact• China• Korea

Mobilization for the Postwar World

• National Security Act of 1947

• Atomic Weapons• NSC 68• The importance of

1949

“Fall” of China

• China complicating US policy in Asia

• Consequences of Chinese Civil War– No recognition– Fueled domestic hard-liners– Renewed interest in Asia

The Korean War, 1950-1953

MacArthur (far right) visits the front in the Korean War.

2 Questions

• What were the Soviet and Chinese roles in the decision to invade?

• Why did the US defend Korea?

Cold War Policy and Nationalism

• Independence in a bi-polar world• Iran• Guatemala• Cuba

The Vietnam War

2-minute writing

• What do you know about the Vietnam War and how did you “learn” it?– (gets to issues of history v. memory)

Vietnam Historiography

• Extraordinary passions and influence of war

• Several key issues:– Origins: necessary or a terrible

mistake?– Outcome: why unable to preserve

South Vietnam? Unwinnable?– Meaning and lessons: what are they?

Two main camps

• Critical - Vietnam a bad war - the “Standard Interpretation”

• Legitimate endeavor that could have been won

The “Standard Interpretation”

• Critics dominated the early literature– Reversal of other war histories

• Journalists and former officials start– The Bitter Heritage 1967 - Arthur

Schlesinger Jr. - “quagmire”

• “Quagmire” challenged by Pentagon Papers revelations– Presidents knew their actions might fail

Revisionist Challenge

• (Argue vehemently against anyone who says “trying to rewrite history”)

• Started to appear at end of 1970s• Part of growing conservative rise

and fueled by postwar conditions in Vietnam

• Revisionists seek to justify war on either or both of these grounds:– Vietnamese Communists a part of a

larger threat of Communism that was a real threat to U.S.

– Moral reasons: to save the South from the ravages of Communism

• Revisionists also seek to argue that war was winnable– U.S. Grant Sharp Strategy for Defeat:

Vietnam in Retrospect 1978

• But, two opposing views of how it could have been won– More conventional – More counter-insurgency– (each position claims the actual war was

fought in the opposite manner)

Recent Scholarship

• Standard interpretation still holds for most historians

• What is being written now:– Broader in scope: Congress, other

nations’ views– Archives from China and former USSR– Vietnamese side

LBJ and the War

• LBJ’s Doubts • Gulf of Tonkin

Resolution – August 1964

• Pleiku– February 1965

• U.S. Combat Troops– 1965

Phone Conversation with Sen. Russell, May 1964

Strategies and Attitudes

• LBJ’s View• U.S. Strategy

– Attrition– Pacification– Relocation– Technology

Strategies and Attitudes

• North Vietnam and Vietcong Strategy– Guerilla warfare– Ho Chi Minh Trail– Social Revolution– Nationalism– Survival

End of Cold War: Reagan as ultimate hero

• Argument of John Lewis Gaddis– Strong rhetoric, but practical– R. saw opportunity and seized it– R. pursued policy of strength

Flaws in Gaddis argument

• Fails to see full picture of 1980s U.S., USSR, Eastern Europe, and World

• Fails to see power of containment over the long haul

1980s

• US• USSR• Gorbache

v• Eastern

Europe• World

U.S. in the Middle Eastsince 1945

War and Cold War bring the U.S. to the Middle East• Overall Goal:

– Stability that allows U.S. access to oil

Suggested Gameplan:

• Stability, Nationalism, Revolution

• Arab-Israeli Conflict & U.S.

• The Persian Gulf since 1980

History and Memory

• HISTORY:

• History is what we do to the past in the present

• History is argument, arguments come from evidence, evidence comes from the “text”

• MEMORY:

• Individual v. Collective memory (“body of beliefs about the past”)

• Collective memory provides “lessons”