Press | History

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. 

Dr. Mary Elizabeth Walters, a former Clements’ pre-doctoral fellow, has won the Edward Coffman Dissertation Prize from the Society for Military History, their highest award for graduate research. 

Clements’ post-doctoral fellow Silke Zoller has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position at Kennesaw State University, Georgia. She will be working in the Department of History and Philosophy. 

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, we listen in on a book talk given by James Mann, author of The Great Rift: Dickey Cheney, Colin Powell, and the Broken Friendship that Defined an Era. Mann, a journalist and prolific author who has previously written about foreign policy in the Reagan, Bush, and Obama administrations, is…

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Alan McPherson, the Thomas J. Freany Jr. Professor of History and director of the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy of Temple University, comes to the University of Texas to talk about his book, Ghosts of Sheridan Circle. McPherson discusses the September 1976 car bomb assassination…

John Gans, director of communications and research at Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, gives a talk at the University of Texas at Austin to discusses his book, White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War. In this talk, Gans focuses on the career and the accomplishments of a single NSC staffer, who ultimately perished during his duties in Bosnia. He uses the story of Nelson Drew as a way to illustrate both the power and the process that exists within the NSC. 

Dr. Combes joins fellow experts in deliberating the pedagogy on the American Empire Debate for this H-Diplo Teaching Roundtable.

Dr. Inboden and several other faculty colleagues from The University of Texas at Austin contributed their takes on how the 2010s decade will be remembered in history. 

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Allen Packwood, director of the Churchill Archives Centre and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, comes to the University of Texas to discuss his book, How Churchill Waged War: The Most Challenging Decision of the Second World War. Packwood explores issues that are lesser known than…

Charlie Laderman, lecturer in international history at the War Studies Department at King’s College, discusses his book Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order. Laderman talks about the mass killing and death of Armenians during the period that preceded and shortly followed the independence of the Turkish Republic. The subject of this episode focuses on the question of how this incident signaled the rise of a global order based simultaneously on liberalism, sovereignty, and a commitment to human rights. 

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Darren Dochuk, associate professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, discusses his new book, Anointedwith Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America. Dochuk explores how oil grafted itself to the soul of the United States and became part of its identity. He uses the term “wildcat Christianity“ to describe the actions of oil prospectors who used the profits from their ventures to support Christian missionary endeavors around the world and traces how the religious identity and cultural identity of the United States are intertwined with this natural resource.

Park reviews Carr’s classic work The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations for the SAIS Review of International Affairs in honor of the 80th anniversary of its publication.

In partnership with the world-renowned War Studies Department at King’s College London, the Maymester in London provides exemplary students the opportunity to learn firsthand about the U.S./U.K. special relationship. The program is taught at King’s College London and includes visits to important landmarks in British cultural heritage and Anglo-American strategic history, as well as private events with senior policymakers and historians. 

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Jim Goldgeier, professor and former dean of the American University School of International Service, and Derek Chollet, current executive vice president of the German Marshall Fund, discuss their 2008 book, America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11 and the arc of post-cold war American foreign policy. In this podcast, they’ve included another 11/9, referring not to the end of the Cold War, but to Nov. 9, 2016, the day after the election of Donald Trump. This talk was recorded during the Clements Center’s Summer Seminar on History, Statecraft, and Diplomacy.

The Clements Center has partnered over the past several years with the SMU Center for Presidential History, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and Duke University American Grand Strategy Program to conduct an in-depth study of President George W. Bush’s controversial decision in 2006-2007 to order a surge of forces and new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. …

The Clements Center’s Student Professional Development Fund provides UT undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to intern at some of the top governmental and non-governmental organizations across the world by providing monetary support for unpaid positions.

James B. Steinberg, professor at the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, former deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration and deputy national security adviser under President Bill Clinton, discusses the process and considerations that led to the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. Based on his…

In the latest episode of this new podcast series from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dr. Green and Dr. Inboden unpack popular misconceptions about the application of history to grand strategy and discuss the critical place of values in American foreign policy. They also preview Dr. Inboden’s forthcoming book on the Reagan administration.

We’d like to extend our warm congratulations to Dr. Mark Atwood Lawrence, Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of History, for receiving the Silver Spurs Centennial Teaching Award! We’re grateful for his tireless dedication and excellence as an educator – no one is more deserving of such recognition and we’re fortunate to have him…

Throughout history, how have Americans thought about their own self-defense? Have they always thought about it like they do today — as expansive, global, and ideological? Andrew Preston discusses these questions by looking at the history of the idea of national security and how it is different today than in the past, the topic of his current…

Clements Center and ISP Fellow Paul Pope sits down with and Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic & International Studies to talk about his latest book, A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland. They discuss Reagan’s approach to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and how the CIA aided Poland’s opposition movement…

Jackson and a team of scholars review the recently published “Suez Deconstructed” by Philip Zelikow and the late Ernest May to determine what lessons the Suez Canal crisis holds for today’s policymakers.

The University of Texas at Austin’s Intelligence Studies Project (ISP) hosted its fifth annual Intelligence Studies Project Symposium. This year’s Symposium “Intelligence in Transition” featured a keynote address by the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Susan Gordon. This event is co-sponsored by the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law, the Clements Center for National Security, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

In an op-ed for CNN, Dr. Inboden explores the history of NATO to offer a perspective on the unique value of the alliance. 

Dr. Evans and coauthor A. Bradley Potter challenge the conventional narrative on the U.S. withdrawal from Lebanon in “When Do Leaders Change Course? Theories of Success and the American Withdrawal from Beirut, 1983-84”.