Book Release Event
During World War II, the US Army inserted itself into domestic Washington politics to influence the uses of American power.
How did the US Army emerge as one of the most powerful political organizations in the United States following World War II? In this book, Grant H. Golub asserts that this remarkable shift was the result of the Army’s political masters consciously transforming the organization into an active political player throughout the war.
Led by Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War and one of the most experienced American statesmen of the era, the Army energetically worked to shape the contours of American power throughout the war, influencing the scope and direction of US foreign policy as the Allies fought the Axis powers.
The result saw the Army, and the military more broadly, gain unprecedented levels of influence over US foreign relations. As World War II gave way to the Cold War, the military helped set the direction of policy toward the Soviet Union and aided the decades of confrontation between the two superpowers.
About our speaker:
Dr Grant Golub (Assistant Professor of American History, Department of National Security and Strategy, U.S. Army War College)
Dr Grant Golub is an Assistant Professor of American History in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College. His first book, entitled Warriors in Washington: Henry Stimson, the US Army, and the Politics of American Power in World War II, examines how the US Army influenced the politics of American grand strategy during World War II and rose to become one of the most powerful political organizations in the United States and was just published with Cambridge University Press. Before coming to the USAWC, he was an Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. He has held additional fellowships with the Notre Dame International Security Center and the International Policy Scholars Consortium & Network based at Johns Hopkins – SAIS. His scholarly work has also been published in the Journal of Strategic Studies and The International History Review. He has a BA in History and American Studies from Princeton University and an MSc and PhD in International History from the LSE.
About our chair:
Prof Matthew Jones (Professor, Department of International History, LSE)
Professor Jones studied for his undergraduate degree at the University of Sussex, and went on to St Antony’s College, Oxford, where he gained his DPhil in Modern History. He was appointed to a Lectureship in the History Department at Royal Holloway, University of London in 1994, and subsequently promoted to Reader in International History before moving to the University of Nottingham in 2004 where he was Professor of Modern History. In 2008, Professor Jones was appointed by the Prime Minister to become the Cabinet Office official historian of the UK strategic nuclear deterrent and the Chevaline programme. He joined LSE in September 2013 as Professor of International History, and was Head of Department of International History at LSE from 2017 to 2020.
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