Press | History

The Department of History lost one of its true giants last Wednesday when Robert Divine, a preeminent scholar of U.S. foreign relations, passed away at the age of 92. Bob taught at UT for a remarkable 42 years before retiring in 1996. Along the way, he published 14 books, racked up numerous teaching awards, served as department chair, and advised numerous PhD students who went on to distinguished careers. Bob touched innumerable lives – including ours — and is remembered for generosity and good cheer as well as his scholarly brilliance.

In the wake of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, much attention has focused on the fate of Afghan citizens who risked their lives to aid U.S. forces. The hastily organized evacuation of Afghan refugees has frequently drawn unfavorable comparison to the evacuation and resettlement of Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon in 1975. As…

In the 1950s, researchers at the RAND Corporation ran two different wargames exploring questions of nuclear strategy. Both were named the Cold War Game, known to the participants as COW.  One, run by the Mathematics Analysis Division (MAD), abstracted questions of the ethics of nuclear war in order to seek reproducible results. The other, run…

Mark Twain once said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. The repetition of patterns of events and responses is one reason that scholars and policymakers often turn to the past for insight into how to best deal with contemporary events. It is also why classic works of history and strategy — such…

Congratulations to our former post-doctoral fellow Ian Johnson, now on Notre Dame’s history faculty, on the publication of his excellent new book with Oxford University Press.

“The most famous four words of the Cold War almost went unsaid. When President Ronald Reagan stood at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987, and demanded ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!,’ he did so over fierce resistance within his own administration,” writer Inboden in his latest for the Dallas Morning News. 

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Thomas Ricks, journalist and historian, talks about his new book, “First Principles, What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How that Shaped Our Country.” Ricks outlines the degree to which the founding fathers were influenced by the ancients and how this influence helped to…

Tomorrow is the 34th anniversary of President Reagan’s “Tear Down this Wall” speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, which helped lead to the liberation of Eastern Europe and the peaceful end of the Cold War.  Follow the link to watch it on YouTube.

We at Clements would like to extend our congratulations to our friend Jim Hornfischer on his receipt of the Navy’s “Distinguished Public Service Award.”

Over the past several years, many CC students and faculty members have worked with Dr. Garrity and have benefited greatly from his scholarship. He will be missed by many. 

Charlie Laderman wins an award from Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era for his latest book, Sharing the Burden. 

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Frank Gavin, chair of the editorial board of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with Philip Zelikow to discuss his new book, The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916 – 1917. Gavin and Zelikow explore the story of the peace talks and…

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Prof. Sarah C.M. Paine of the U.S. Naval War College examines a variety of explanations for why the Cold War ended, when it did, and how it did. Paine does not arrive at a single answer but paints a much richer portrait of the fascinating events that…

On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill delivered a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. This speech, known as “The Sinews of Peace” speech, became famous for the phrase that Churchill coined about the fall of the “Iron Curtain” across Europe. To mark its 75th anniversary, the Clements Center assembled a panel to discuss the…

Thirty-five years ago today, the Challenger spacecraft exploded just over a minute after liftoff, killing all seven crew members aboard. That night, instead of giving the slated State of the Union Address, President Ronald Reagan shifted gears and delivered a moving four-minute speech to a country in mourning. Tevi Troy takes a look at the address…

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin, sits down with Simon Miles, assistant professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, to discuss his book, Engaging the Evil Empire: Washington, Moscow, and the Beginning of the End…

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Bobby Chesney, director of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law, and Will Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin, sit down with Peter Baker and Susan Glasser to discuss their new book, The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life…

Clements Center Director of Research Aaron O’Connell published “The War in Afghanistan is Nineteen Years Old: What Can it Teach us about Violence in American History?” for Not Even Past on the 19th anniversary of US entry into Afghanistan. Faculty Fellow Jeremi Suri contributed to this article.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Aaron O’Connell, associate professor of history at the Clements Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and Michel Paradis, a law professor at Columbia Law School and Georgetown Law School, discuss Paradis’ book, Last Mission to Tokyo, which examines the aftermath of the Doolittle Raid. In April 1942,…

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, William Inboden, editor-in-chief of the Texas National Security Review, is joined by Robert Zoellick, former president of the World Bank, and Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission and counselor to numerous administrations, to discuss Zoellick’s new book, America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy…

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with professor Bartholomew Sparrow, professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and author of, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security, to talk about the late Brent Scowcroft.

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, sits down with Mark Lawrence, director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, to discuss the inner workings of the presidential library system and the purposes they serve. Who runs them and who funds them? What mission do…

The University of Texas History Department today announced that William Roger Louis, Kerr Chair of English History and Culture, will be retiring from the University on August 31, 2020. “Please join me in congratulating Roger on his retirement and in celebrating his illustrious career here at UT and in the historical profession generally,” said Jacqueline Jones, History Department Chair.

In this episode, we learn more about the Clements Center namesake, William P. Clements, Jr. Clements negotiated a deal with President Richard Nixon where he reported directly to the president, despite serving as either the Acting or Deputy Secretary of Defense under Presidents Nixon and Ford. He served two non-consecutive terms as the first Republican…

In this episode of Horns, William Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center, and author and journalist Craig Fehrman, discuss his book, Author and Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote. In this fascinating conversation, Inboden and Fehrman examine the relationships between presidents and their ghost writers. In addition, they talk…

Ashlyn Hand, a doctoral student at the LBJ School, has co-authored a new paper in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. “Weapon of the Strong? Government Support for Religion and Majoritarian Terrorism” is a quantitative study that examines the impact of religious favoritism on terrorism.