Gaddis on Kennan

by Cliopatria

Among the most anticipated books for the dwindling number of us who remain in diplomatic history is John Lewis Gaddis' biography of George Kennan. Gaddis was granted more or less complete access to Kennan's papers, as well as numerous interviews with Kennan, with the proviso that the book would not appear until after Kennan's death.

A glimpse, perhaps, of some of the arguments the volume might contain comes in this week'sNew Republic.

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David Lion Salmanson - 4/18/2005

Oscar refers to what my old professor Brad Perkins called multi-archival research. Historians culled archives on both sides of the Atlantic (or sometimes the St. Lawrence, Rio Grande, or rarely, the Pacific) and drew conclusions based on the insights of this archival research. With the rise of the Cold War, too many questions had only one archival perspective available (the West's). Thus the rise of SHAFR or the Society for the History of American Foreign Relations in which multi-archival research was downplayed by necessity in favor of more one-sided approaches that tended to integrate a ot of the new social history. One of the best works that summarizes this school is Michael Hunt's Ideology and American Foreign Policy. Anyway, since the fall of the Soviet Union, multi-archival work is making a comeback but there are still structural impediments.

First, languages. Russian is a tough language to learn and most grad students do not have an early jump on it the way they do with Spanish, French or even Japanese or Chinese.

Second, cost. Funds for doing overseas research have dried up, done in first by the end of FLAS grants and the Cold War and now with 9-11 reaction. And its expensive to go to most foreign archives.

Third, time. Multi-archival research is extremely time consuming and we are in a climate wherein time to degree, to publish, etc. is more important than ever. A multiarchival project is too susceptible to funding snafus that then mess up your time table and goodbye anymore funding/job prospects after that.

Oscar Chamberlain - 4/18/2005

I don't think the problem is simply the political to social shift--though I would not dismiss its importance. A friend of mine received her PHD in diplomatic in the mid-1980s. She said then that diplomatic history had been diminished by growing criticisms of its traditional focus on American diplomacy from an American perspective, because that focus did not give sufficient attention to the perspectives of the other countries in a given topic.

I'd add that this problem--and at one point I think it was truly a problem--could be found across the political spectrum in diplomatic writing.

Having said all that, I am also interested in seeing Gaddis discuss Kennan at length.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/18/2005

Anne, KC can certainly speak for himself, but one of his primary concerns is that, in major history departments across the country, there has been a tendency, especially in American history, to take appointment lines that were traditionally held by constitutional, diplomatic, military, and political historians and give them to historians of race, class, and gender. That has been a major point of discussion at Cliopatria and KC has been a primary spokesman for the more traditional lines as opposed to the social history trifecta.

Anne Zook - 4/18/2005

I don't understand why there's a "dwindling number" of people interested in diplomatic history? It strikes me as a fascinating field.