New Books in National Security

In his new book, Mussolini and Hitler: The Forging of the Fascist Alliance (Yale University Press, 2018), Christian Goeschel, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Manchester, examines the relationship between Hitler and Mussolini and how their relationship developed and affected both countries. In this highly readable book, Goeschel, revisits all of Mussolini and Hitler’s key meetings and asks how these meetings constructed a powerful image of a strong Fascist-Nazi relationship that still resonates with the general public. The first comprehensive study of the Mussolini-Hitler relationship, this book is a must-read for scholars and anyone interested in the history of European fascism, World War II, or political leadership. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Throughout modern history, British and American rivalry has gone hand in hand with common interests. Now renown diplomatic historian Professor Kathleen Burk in her newest book, The Lion and the Eagle: The Interaction of the British and American Empires, 1783-1972 (Bloomsbury, 2019), examines and looks at the different kinds and forms of power and influence that these the two empires have projected, and the ways and means they have used to do it. What these two empires have shared is a mixture of pragmatism, ruthless commercial drive, a self-righteous foreign policy and plenty of naked aggression. These have been aimed against each other more than once; yet their underlying alliance against common enemies has been historically unique and a defining force throughout the twentieth century.This is a global history of an unusual type: the rise and fall of empires projected against their joint interaction with Japan, China in the 19th century and vis-á-vis Europe and the Near East in the 20th century. Ranging from America's futile attempts to conquer Canada in the early 19th century to her success in the mid-19th century to opening up Japan; from Britain's success in forcing open China to her loss of the Middle East to the US in the 20th century; and from the American conquest of the Philippines to her destruction of the British Empire. The Pax Americana replaced the Pax Britannica, but now some say that the American world order is in turn fading, threatening Britain's belief in her own world role as America's junior partner and ally.  All from the author of the well received, Old World, New World and Troublemaker: the life and history of A. J. P. Taylor.Charles Coutinho has a doctorate in history from New York University. Where he studied with Tony Judt, Stewart Stehlin and McGeorge Bundy. His Ph. D. dissertation was on Anglo-American relations in the run-up to the Suez Crisis of 1956. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written recently for the Journal of Intelligence History and Chatham House’s International Affairs. It you have a recent title to suggest for a podcast, please send an e-mail to Charlescoutinho@aol.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more democratic. How can publishers and authors contribute to this process? This podcast addresses this issue. We interview Professor Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, whose book, The Good Drone: How Social Movements Democratize Surveillance (forthcoming with MIT Press) is undergoing a Massive Online Peer-Review (MOPR) process, where everyone can make comments on his manuscript. Additionally, his book will be Open Access (OA) since the date of publication. We discuss with him how do MOPR and OA work, how he managed to combine both of them and how these initiatives can contribute to the democratization of knowledge.You can participate in the MOPR process of The Good Drone through this link: https://thegooddrone.pubpub.org/Felipe G. Santos is a PhD candidate at the Central European University. His research is focused on how activists care for each other and how care practices within social movements mobilize and radicalize heavily aggrieved collectives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Keith Gave spent six years in the NSA during the Cold War, but his most daring mission may have come later, while working as a sports writer. In the late 1980s, Gave was asked by the Detroit Red Wings to reach behind the Iron Curtain and initiate contact with the team's newest draft picks, two players on the Soviet Union's famed Red Army hockey club. His hazardous quest helped pave the way for an unforgettable era in hockey, one that would eventually feature five former Soviet players playing together in Detroit, leading their team to an elusive Stanley Cup championship.Some sensitive and bizarre details of how the Russian Five was assembled were never disclosed before Gave told all in his book The Russian Five: A Story of Espionage, Defection, Bribery and Courage (Gold Star Publishing, 2018), and in the documentary The Russian Five, for which Gave served as a producer. Gave, who covered hockey for the Detroit Free Press for 15 years, talks about how a hockey beat writer ended up writing a real-life spy thriller.Nathan Bierma is a writer, instructional designer, and voiceover talent in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His website is www.nathanbierma.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

During the first half of the 20th century the American historian Charles Austin Beard enjoyed both professional success and a national prominence that suffered with his outspoken opposition to the direction of foreign policy under Franklin Roosevelt. In Charles Austin Beard: The Return of the Master Historian of American Imperialism (Cornell University Press, 2018), Richard Drake traces the development of Beard’s ideas in this area and his involvement in the contemporary discourse over current events. Drake identifies Beard’s time at Oxford University as key to the development of his thinking, with his introduction to the works of John Ruskin and John Atkinson Hobson. Though Beard’s early writings led to a friendship with the progressive politician Robert La Follette, the two men disagreed about America’s intervention in the First World War, a cause Beard supported. In its aftermath, however, Beard reconsidered his opinion, and by the 1930s emerged as a prominent critic of America’s involvement in overseas disputes. Beard held to his views even after America’s entry into the Second World War, establishing an unlikely association with former president Herbert Hoover and offering a prescient critique in its aftermath of the consequences of America’s postwar foreign policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

“Is America an Empire?” is a popular question for pundits and historians, likely because it sets off such a provocative debate. All too often, however, people use empire simply because the United States is a hegemon, ignoring the country’s imperial traits to focus simply on its power. Dr. Daniel Immerwahr’s book How to Hide an Empire: The History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019) corrects this by explicitly focusing on the country’s territories and territories overseas possessions.Dr. Immerwahr begins at the country’s founding as apprehension over aggressive westward settlement gave way to enthusiastic land grabs by pioneers such as Daniel Boone. Propelled by an astonishingly high birth rate and immigration, Euroamericans displaced indigenous peoples. In addition to this more familiar narrative, other factors drove territorial expansion. A desperate need for fertilizers led to the annexation of nearly one hundred “guano islands” in the Pacific and Caribbean, followed by the annexation of even more territory following the Spanish-American War in 1898. These new territories, including Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and others enjoyed an uneasy relationship with the United States: they did not enjoy constitutional protections but nevertheless had a close relationship with what they called the mainland. While the United States backed away from traditional colonialism after 1945, what emerged instead was a “pointillist empire” that depended on bases and new uses of older territory to function.Zeb Larson is a PhD Candidate in History at The Ohio State University. His research is about the anti-apartheid movement in the United States. To suggest a recent title or to contact him, please send an e-mail to zeb.larson@gmail.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

This episode of the New Books in Military History podcast is something of a sea change, so to speak, as we turn our attention to naval policy and strategy.  Institutional reform is a well-established topic in studies of the ground and air forces of the United States, ranging from Alexander Hamilton and John C. Calhoun through to Emory Upton and Billy Mitchell.  By comparison, with the noted exception of Alfred Thayer Mahan, much less has been written about the growing professionalism and institutional transformation of the United States Navy in the late nineteenth century.  Our guest for this episode addresses this gap directly.  Scott Mobley is a former naval officer and University of Wisconsin PhD who has written Progressives in Navy Blue: Maritime Strategy, American Empire, and the Transformation of U.S. Naval Identity, 1873-1898 (Naval Institute Press, 2018).  Not only does Scott address many open question about the technological transformation of the Navy, from a wooden hulled, sail and steam powered force into one built around steel armored cruisers, he goes far to put Mahan into his proper context as one of a growing community of intellectuals willing to reassess the mission and global reach of the institution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

The Crossroads of Globalization. A Latin American View (World Scientific Publishing Co. 2019) explores the complex interaction of several forces shaping the current world economic situation. Alfredo Toro Hardy analyzes the leadership of China and the economic strength of Asia, transnational companies, and international organizations like the IMF as forces in favor of globalization, while populism, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution are part of the anti-globalization trend.  By giving a worldwide context, the author situates Latin America as a region that is facing several challenges in order do be part of a phenomenon that is developing with uncertain outcomes. Toro Hardy also provides some of the paths the region could follow in the near future.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Great Britain was forced to give up the bulk of its vast, globe-spanning empire. While most histories of this process have examined it from the perspective of high politics and focused on matters of state construction, in The British End of the British Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2018) Sarah Stockwell addresses the role played by a number of non-state and quasi-state bodies – the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Bank of England, the Royal Mint, and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst – in the process of decolonization. As Stockwell notes, these institutions played a growing role in the British Empire in the interwar era, one that started to change soon after the war as Britain accepted the reality of her postwar situation and began preparing the colonies in places such as Africa for independence. As British educational institutions trained a post-imperial generation of soldiers and administrators, the Bank of England aided in the creation of new central banks, and the Royal Mint produced coinage that symbolized the independence of these colonies, they did so in ways that maintained a continuing British influence in these places, even after formal control came to an end. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

It was a pleasure, earlier today, to speak to Jeremy Black, professor of history at the University of Exeter, about his new book, Britain and Europe: A Short History (Hurst, 2018). Jeremy is one of the best-known and certainly the most prolific of British historians, and his new book demonstrates both his extraordinary range and his compelling arguments. Beginning in the iron age and concluding in the present, Britain and Europe traces relationships between territories and cultures that change and conflict even as they participate in the construction of each other. The current debate about Brexit has shown how important historical arguments can be in public discourse, as well as how frequently these historical arguments can be abused. Grand in scope, and always accessible, Britain and Europe challenges lazy political appropriations of a difficult and rewarding past.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security