Joseph Stromberg

A Policeman’s Lot Is Not a Happy One – at Home and Abroad GOVERNOR EDWARD EYRE AND THE ‘JOYS AND SORROWS OF EMPIRE’ Edward John Eyre (1815-1901) was a great builder of the British Empire. After a career as a magistrate in Australia, where an occasional lake is named for him (occasionally there’s water in … Continue reading “A Policeman’s Lot Is Not a Happy One – at Home and Abroad”

A PROGRESSIVE HISTORIAN Last week in a discussion of Charles Austin Beard, "isolationist" Progressive historian, I mentioned Beard’s influence on a number of younger scholars, among them William Appleman Williams and Murray N. Rothbard. Williams emerged in the late 1950s as the spearhead of New Left diplomatic history and has had an enduring influence on … Continue reading “William Appleman Williams: Premier New Left Revisionist”

A PROGRESSIVE HISTORIAN Charles A. Beard (1874-1948) was a central figure in the American historical profession in the first half of this century. Born into a substantial Midwestern family in Indiana, he studied at Spiceland Academy, a Quaker institution. He spent 1898-1902 at Oxford University. He returned to the United States and by 1904 had … Continue reading “Charles Austin Beard: The Historian as American Nationalist”

As noted in a previous column, Southerners have gotten a reputation for belligerence at home and abroad. To combat this unfortunate generalization, I continue my survey of Southerners who have been critics – to some degree or another – of interventionist foreign policy and empire. Tom Watson, whose views on the Spanish-American War and the … Continue reading “Southern Critics of Intervention: Part III”

POST NO BELLUMS The Confederate States of America did not last long enough as a going concern to produce a tradition in foreign affairs. The main issue facing the Confederates was self-defense against Mr. Lincoln’s armies. This left little time for debates about intervening or not intervening in other country’s affairs or supporting other secessionist … Continue reading “Southern Critics of Intervention: Part II”

OLD TIMES THERE ARE NOT FORGOTTEN With due care, it is possible to rent a film set in the American South which is not given over to bewailing endless Evil and Corruption of the sort that logically requires permanent occupation by the Army of the Potomac. These days, it’s not just high-minded leftists or former … Continue reading “Southern Critics of Intervention: Part I”

AN UNCIVIL WAR The controversy over Patrick J. Buchanan’s A Republic, Not an Empire is most remarkable. One could expect a presidential candidate’s critics to use his words against him – “Oh, that mine enemy had written a book.” What is odd is the way Buchanan’s critics handle his disagreements with conventional history. Good manners … Continue reading “Buchanan, The Good War, and Ironclad Orthodoxies”

I have promised to survey theories of empire. My warrant is simply that empire, where it exists, is burdensome and destructive to the lives and property of real human beings in both the imperial center and its protectorates, allies, and possessions. Keeping empire intact and expanding its sway calls for unending military intervention. Some of … Continue reading “Cui Bono? Imperialism and Theory”

Nonintervention – the notion that the purpose of American foreign policy is the actual defense of the United States themselves – is the essential American perspective on foreign affairs. It is the foreign policy most consistent with the republican and libertarian values of the American Revolution and the ongoing peaceful “revolution” of the free market. … Continue reading “Nonintervention or Empire:”

Some people like to say that photographs of President George Bush and other high US officials taken while the Berlin Wall was coming down and Eastern Europe liberating itself (with no real heroics and bloodshed from the likes of NATO, thank you) reveal much unhappiness on the part of men who had given "the whole … Continue reading “STUNNED!”