Suchergebnisse

New research by several leading political historians creates a detailed and diverse study of Anglo-American relations in the twentieth century. Declassified documents provide unique insight into the personal relationships between Eisenhower and Eden, and Lyndon Johnson and Harold Wilson. This volume offers a breadth of scholarship drawn from three continents and examines the diplomatic negotiations, powerful personalities and political considerations at the heart of British-American affairs.

After 1898 the United States not only solidified its position as an economic colossus, but by annexing Puerto Rico and the Philippines it had also added for the first time semi-permanent, heavily populated colonies unlikely ever to attain statehood. In short order followed a formal protectorate over Cuba, the "taking" of Panama to build a canal, and the announcement of a new Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, proclaiming an American duty to "police" the hemisphere. Empire had been an American practice since the nation's founding, but the new policies were understood as departures from traditional methods of territorial expansion. How to match these actions with traditional non-entanglement constituted the central preoccupation of U.S. foreign relations in the early twentieth century. International lawyers proposed instead that the United States become an impartial judge. By becoming a force for law in the world, America could reconcile its republican ideological tradition with a desire to rank with the Great Powers. Lawyers' message scaled new heights of popularity in the first decade and a half of the twentieth century as a true profession of international law emerged. The American Society of International Law (ASIL) and other groups, backed by the wealth of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, held annual meetings and published journals. They called for the creation of an international court, the holding of regular conferences to codify the rules of law, and the education of public opinion as to the proper rights and duties of states. To an extent unmatched before or since, the U.S. government-the executive branch if not always the U.S. Senate-embraced this project. Washington called for peace conferences and pushed for the creation of a "true" international court. It proposed legal institutions to preserve order in its hemisphere. Meanwhile lawyers advised presidents and made policy. The ASIL counted among its first members every living secretary of state (but one) who held office between 1892 and 1920. Growing numbers of international lawyers populated the State Department and represented U.S. corporations with business overseas. International lawyers were not isolated idealists operating from the sidelines. Well-connected, well-respected, and well-compensated, they formed an integral part of the foreign policy establishment that built and policed an expanding empire.

In 1946, Arnold Schoenberg, one of the twentieth century's most consequential composers, wrote that in music there is "no story, no subject, no object, no moral, no philosophy or politics which one might like or hate." Although one is reluctant to cast doubt on Schoenberg's musical meditations, I would suggest that in this instance, he was, quite simply, wrong. (Whether Schoenberg was misguided about more crucial musical matters is a subject for another article.) Had the great man encountered the contributions in this forum, he would have learned that music and politics are often tightly interwoven, and that musicians, composers, and government officials have all recognized the extent to which the world of music can indeed be enmeshed in the world of politics. The scholarship presented here also suggests that the study of music can deepen our understanding of the activities of the United States on the international stage, a notion that can now be understood rather differently than in the past. It is worth emphasizing, moreover, that writing about music is difficult. By its very nature, the subject -- whether one focuses on composers, performers, or listeners, or on the interactions among them -- has an elusive quality that does not lend itself to ready analysis or straightforward conclusions. However challenging the topic, it must be said that these four articles are altogether stimulating and significant. Adapted from the source document.

During the twentieth century, foreign-exchange intervention was sometimes used in an attempt to solve the fundamental trilemma of international finance, which holds that countries cannot simultaneously pursue independent monetary policies, stabilise their exchange rates, and benefit from free cross-border financial flows. Drawing on a trove of previously confidential data, 'Strained Relations' reveals the evolution of US policy regarding currency market intervention, and its interaction with monetary policy.