<p>What accounts for the rise of defense intellectuals in the early Cold War? Why did these academics reject university life to accept positions in the foreign policy establishment? Why were so many of German origin? "The Night Watchman" answers these questions through a contextual biography of the German exile Hans Speier, a foreign policy expert who in the 1940s and 1950s consulted for the State Department and executive branch, and helped found the RAND Corporation, Stanford University's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the program in international communication at MIT's Center for International Studies. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, witnessing ordinary Germans vote enthusiastically for Adolf Hitler engendered a skepticism of democracy in Speier and a cohort of social democratic intellectuals. Once Hitler assumed power in 1933, Speier and his colleagues were forced to flee Central Europe for the United States. In America, a number of these left wing exiles banded together with U.S. progressives to argue that if democracy was to survive as a viable political form in a world beset with "totalitarian" threats, intellectual experts, not ordinary people, must become the shapers of foreign policy. Only intellectuals, Speier and others argued, could ensure that the United States committed its vast resources to the defeat of totalitarianism.</p><p>World War II provided Speier and his academic cohort with the opportunity to transform their ideas into reality. Called upon by government officials who required the services of intellectuals familiar with the German language and culture, hundreds of social scientists joined the Office of War Information, Office of Strategic Services, and other new organizations of the wartime government. After the war, this first generation of defense intellectuals, uninterested in returning to the relative tranquility of academia, allied with government and military officials to create a network of state and corporate institutions that reproduced the wartime experience on a permanent basis. Speier himself became chief of RAND's Social Science Division and a consultant responsible for advising the Ford Foundation on where to direct its resources. In the latter capacity, he counseled the foundation to fund institutions that provided a home to intellectuals concerned with refining the methods of social science to improve policy-relevant knowledge.</p><p>Speier's interwar experiences with Nazism and postwar understanding of Joseph Stalin's actions in Eastern Europe and West Berlin led him to conclude that all totalitarian societies, be they fascist or communist, were run by elites who did not wish to reach détente with the United States. For this reason, Speier declared, U.S. decision-makers should treat all Soviet diplomatic overtures as feints designed to trick the western alliance into weakening its international standing. He further argued that because totalitarian states were autocracies in which the public had no say in foreign affairs, the United States should not use propaganda to win ordinary people living in the Soviet Union to its side, but should instead employ methods of psychological warfare to disrupt the personal and professional networks of Soviet elites. Speier's position at RAND and his relationship with the State Department provided him with opportunities to disseminate his opinions throughout the foreign policy establishment. By virtue of his central location in this institutional matrix, Speier influenced a number of key U.S. foreign policies, including the inflexible negotiating position adopted by U.S. delegates at the Korean War armistice talks; the tactics of U.S. psychological warfare directed against East Germany and the Soviet Union; and President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Open Skies" proposal at the 1955 Geneva Summit.</p><p>By the 1960s, Speier had helped institutionalize both a system in which intellectuals had direct access to foreign policymakers and a policy culture that privileged expertise. His trajectory demonstrates that the Cold War national security state, broadly defined to include governmental, nongovernmental, and university-associated research centers, was not solely a proximate reaction to the perceived Soviet threat, as historians have argued, but was also the realization of a decades-old, expert-centered political vision formed in response to the collapse of the Weimar Republic.</p> / Dissertation

More than 400 Polish medical refugees were associated with the Polish School of Medicine (PSM) at the University of Edinburgh between 1941 and 1949. This dissertation argues that the history of the PSM can fully be understood only as a part of the refugees’ broader experience of impelled or forced migration during and immediately after the Second World War. The key findings of this case study demonstrate that the opportunity to study or work at the PSM enabled the majority of Polish exiles to overcome, to a varying extent, their refugee predicament, while medical qualifications, transferable skills and trans-cultural competency obtained in wartime Britain allowed them to pursue professional and academic careers in different countries of post-war settlement, thus in turn contributing to a global circulation of medical knowledge and practice, especially between the University of Edinburgh and Poland. This specific case study contributes to the existing knowledge of Polish wartime migration to Britain in three interrelated ways. Firstly, an overarching transnational approach is used to combine and transcend Polish and British scholarly perspectives on, respectively, emigration or immigration. Secondly, the conceptual insularity of the existing literature on the topic is challenged by analysing archival, published and digital sources pertaining to the PSM with the help of various theoretical models and concepts borrowed from forced migration and diaspora studies. Thirdly, the conventional historiography of Polish-British wartime relations is challenged by emphasising the genuinely global ramifications of the PSM’s history. By interpreting the history of the PSM with the help of different analytical tools, such as Kunz’s and Johansson’s models of refugee movement and Tweed’s theory of diasporic religion, this dissertation provides a conceptual blueprint for further research on Polish wartime migration to Britain. In turn, this case study contributes to the development of forced migration and diaspora studies not only by empirically testing the explanatory power of existing theoretical models, but also by suggesting possible new conceptual avenues, such as analysing the pre-existing trans-cultural experiences of both Polish medical refugees and their hosts at the University of Edinburgh, and adding to the ‘triadic relationship’ of diaspora, homeland and host society a fourth dimension, i.e. conflict and cooperation between different migrant or refugee communities within the same host society.

This dissertation argues that the history of Miami is best understood as an imperial history. In a series of thematic chapters, it demonstrates how the city came into existence as a result of expansionism and how it continued to maintain imperial distinctions and hierarchies as it incorporated new people, beginning as a colonial frontier prior to the nineteenth century and becoming an imperial center of the Americas in the twentieth century. In developing an imperial analysis of the city, “The Viceroyalty of Miami” pays particular attention to sources that elite imperialists generated. Their papers, publications, and speeches archive the leading and often loudest voices directing the city’s capitalist development and its future. This focus on the elite shows both their local power over the city and their global vision for it, putting local history into dialogue with newer scholarly approaches to global urban cities. Though imperialists worked to portray the area as untamed during the Spanish colonial period, taming nature became paramount in subsequent eras, especially during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century with the environmental transformation of south Florida. City founders intentionally introduced plants from the Americas and around the world that created an elite tropical culture in Miami, a consequence of overseas imperial acquisitions in 1898 in tropical parts of the world. Spanish revival architecture worked as the means of establishing U.S. sovereignty over a formerly contested frontier, but self-contained suburban development inaugurated persistent problems of metropolitan management. Finally, once imperialists laid claim to the soil and the building that sat upon it, they turned to the air, making Miami a projected site of U.S. power through aviation. In light of the four substantive chapters, the Epilogue recasts our understanding of ideological migration before and after 1959 as the final stage of Miami’s transformation from a colonial frontier to an imperial city.

La maison d’édition et de librairie Treuttel & Würtz a joué un rôle décisif dans les échanges internationaux au tournant des XVIIIe / XIXe siècles. c étaient non seulement les éditeurs de B. Constant, J. W. Goethe et G. de Staël, mais aussi les fournisseurs des grandes bibliothèques européennes en publications venant de l’étranger (p. ex. les bibliothèques royales à Paris, Berlin et Londres, la bibliothèque du marquis de Paulmy, celle de Weimar et celle de l’université de Göttingen). L’essor de la maison est lié à la nouvelle conception de l’image du libraire à Strasbourg à l’époque des Lumières : il est le médiateur entre l’auteur et le public, et entre les différentes cultures entre lesquelles il anime un marché du livre transnational. D’origine strasbourgeoise et avec des établissements à Strasbourg, Paris et Londres, les dirigeants de Treuttel & Würtz répondent pleinement à ce modèle. La valorisation du livre et de son contenu, et la relation étroite entretenue avec l’élite culturelle et politique de l’époque, leur ont permis de bénéficier de privilèges extraordinaires, dont une licence de commerce avec l’Angleterre sous l’Empire, et un intéressement dans la création de nouvelles bibliothèques publiques. Par leur intégration aux élites de l’université et de la culture, ils ont pu encourager les discours littéraires transculturels, et la naissance des philologies modernes. Cette thèse est conçue dans une perspective interdisciplinaire : elle articule l’histoire du livre, l’histoire transnationale et l’histoire des transferts avec l’histoire littéraire, et elle ouvre la monographie d’une maison d’édition vers un tableau socioculturel de l’Europe autour de 1800. / The international bookselling company Treuttel & Würtz played a crucial role in intercultural exchange. It has not only published numerous authors of the French Académie française, and other important writers such as J. W. Goethe or G. de Staël, but also supplied foreign books to prestigious libraries (for example the Royal Libraries in France, Prussia and Great Britain or the Bodleian Library in Oxford). Establishing close ties with the political and cultural elites of the time, the company benefited from unique privileges such as a trade license with the United Kingdom during Napoléon’s continental system. Originally from Strasbourg and perfectly bilingual, the founders continuously expanded the company: in addition to the already existing branch in Strasbourg, they opened a second one in Paris in 1796, and a third in London in 1817. The partners considered the international exchange as their personal vocation and used the medium of the book to materialize their commitment. In this sense, they also devoted their publishing house to the service of the exchange of social and political ideas, literature, and philosophy. Treuttel and Würtz’s commitment to the transnational literary discourse ultimately also influenced the formation of new academic fields around 1800 such as the modern philologies. This thesis builds on an interdisciplinary perspective by combining the French tradition of Book History, with transnational approaches, Cultural Transfer and Romance Studies.

This thesis presents how the American race issue was depicted in Sweden during the 1960s until the early 1970s by studying the work of Sven Öste in Dagens Nyheter. Sven Öste was Dagens Nyheter’s Washington correspondent between 1963-1966 and 1968-1971, where he did prize winning reporting on the Vietnam war and covered the American race issue. Previous research has shown that the race issue was one of the key factors that changed Sweden’s perception of America. Despite this, there is a lack of research on how the American race issue was depicted or discussed in Sweden. This is important to remedy. Providing an understanding of how the American race issue was depicted will improve our knowledge of the Swedish image of America at this time. I will explore how Öste wrote about the Black liberation movement, the white resistance and how we are to understand his reporting. The results show that Öste contributed to a negative image of America through his reporting on the race issue. Öste supported the Black liberation movement, as shown through his emotional and moral writings. Furthermore, Öste compared the race issue to the struggles in the Third World, which contributed to the negative image of America. In doing this, Öste became a transnational actor. With these results, new insight is provided into how the American race issue was depicted in Sweden.

The United States’ policy to win the Cold War in Africa was to ensure that African states adopted the norms of Western liberalism in the long-term. American officials defined Western liberalism as democracy and free market liberalism. U.S. policy considered capitalism the foundation of Western liberalism. For this reason, U.S. administrations allied with, supported, and cooperated with African governments that participated in global capitalism. U.S. international education programs were vital to U.S. efforts to win the Cold War in Africa in the long-term. The fundamental purpose of the programs was to exert American influence over future African civilian, military, economic, and social leaders. U.S. education programs focused on students from Ethiopia and South Africa to solicit their support for American political and social models as the only legitimate form of governance. Officials hoped the success of Ethiopia and South Africa to evolve under U.S. tutelage would make these countries positive models of Western liberalism to Africa. American international education programs for these countries, however, fueled the rise of Pan-Africanist mobilizations among participating students. These students adapted and utilized the political and social models they learned from international education to successfully organize against U.S. policy and the Ethiopian and South African governments. Student-led insurrections forced the regimes into negotiations at the end of the Cold War. However, successor regimes to the authoritarian governments in Ethiopia and South Africa committed to the norms of Western liberalism. / History

The dissertation examines the Student Construction Brigade Movement (SCBM) in the context of Soviet internationalism and the Cold War and portrays it as one of the most unique youth movements in the world at that time. Under the umbrella of the SCBM and in the name of internationalism, students from both socialist and non-socialist countries voluntarily expressed a desire to engage in construction and agricultural work activities as well as cultural exchange. While examining these interactions, I argue that during the Cold War, global youth emerged as one key agent of internationalism through cooperative economic, political, and cultural activities on construction sites around the world. My research not only identifies the Soviet state’s goals in the SCBM (such as ideological indoctrination and demonstration of Soviet influence in beyond the country’s borders), but also reveals that the lived experience of the student exchange went far beyond politics or economics. Students of different nationalities and cultures directly communicated with each other, shared their worldviews, and created a positive basis for expanding their professional and personal contacts.

What is NATO? This diplomatic history reveals that NATO and its meaning were contingent and never static. Instead, NATO was a machine the allies sought to adapt and use to achieve their national interests. NATO was shrouded in an "Atlantic mystique," the suggestion that the allies practiced a unique and exceptional type of cooperation based on shared values and common heritage. But this mystique did not define or ensure NATO's longevity; in fact NATO was thought necessary because of differences between the allies. The allies' national interests did converge on fundamental points, like the need for security. But they rarely agreed on specifics. And when they disagreed on basic questions, like NATO's relationship to the rest of the world, the role of Europe in NATO, and the American commitment to the continent, sparks flew. But because NATO was not static, it could adapt. And the hope held by each ally that they could convince their allies to change NATO to meet their needs - the hope inherent in a dynamic NATO machine - kept the allies working together. From 1955 to 1968, both the allies and the world situation changed dramatically. So to did the allies' plans and uses they saw for NATO. The primary interest of allies was protection from the Soviet Union. But the allies - even some in the Federal Republic of Germany - also believed NATO protected them from a resurgent Germany. Just how to defend against either threat was never agreed. But the allies believed that NATO, by keeping the Cold War cold, and by fostering cooperation between the western European states, established a Pax Atlantica. In this Atlantic peace the allies prospered. They cooperated and they competed, but peacefully. By the end of the 1960s, the allies believed NATO was necessary to maintaining the Pax Atlantica, even if - especially if - the Soviet empire collapsed. Amidst the crises of the 1950s and 1960s, the allies came to believe NATO was guaranteed a long future. / History

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation argues that shifting secular conversion therapy practices and theories in North America between 1910 and 1980 consistently relied on both queer affective experience and anti-queer and anti-trans animus to justify often brutalizing medical interventions. Canadian and American conversion therapists’ pathologizing views of queer sexual behavior and gender identity were shaped by complex interplays between cultural, legal, social, and medical perspectives, but predominately worked to uphold heteronormative social structures leading to discrimination, hate, and harm towards queer people in both countries. Focusing on affect thereby encourages scholars to recognize how conversion therapies in all their variable historical permutations are both medical <i>and </i>cultural practices that have attempted to use queer patients’ affective needs for acceptance, love, safety, and validation in ways advancing anti-gay and anti-trans social narratives in purportedly therapeutic settings since the early twentieth century.</p><p dir="ltr">This research uses a transnational approach that is at once sensitive to national differences between the American and Canadian queer experience while looking to draw connections between conversion therapy’s development and individual experiences of this practice in two national contexts over time. It additionally pays careful attention to the ways social power hierarchies based on race and class informed individuals’ affective experiences of conversion therapy between 1910 and 1980.</p>

Cette thèse reconstruit pour la première fois la genèse et l’histoire de la revue Lettre internationale (1984-1993) et de son réseau européen d’éditions sœurs. / This is the first substantial work of scholarship on the history of the European journal network Lettre internationale (1984-1993).