This chapter explores the debate about the post-1890s expansion of the United States. Taking as a starting point the creation of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) in the 1960s, the chapter suggests that the Left has shaped our field’s discourse since that transformative decade. What constitutes and orients this intellectual movement has, however, changed over time: from the New Left, to the Cultural Left, to the Millennial Left. None of these three organic traditions regarded itself as a rigid School of Thought. Nevertheless, these three manifestations denaturalized, in turn, capitalism, nationalism, and liberalism by presenting each “-ism” as a synonym for US imperial power. Collectively, these three Left Turns have inspired field-defining debates about military power, free trade, cultural hegemony, and legal exception. The discussions have shaped the questions, methodologies, and interpretive tendencies of US foreign relations history. Rather than judging the cumulative effects of this six-decade debate, this chapter illuminates its often unappreciated genealogy. Hopefully, thinking historically about the historiography of US foreign relations history can suggest generative vistas for the future.

This chapter explores how capitalism has shaped US global power, and how US foreign policy has shaped the trajectory of US capitalism. The approach departs from more well-examined questions, such as quantifying how much capitalist motivations dictated foreign policy decisions, or interrogating whether US actions were determined by geopolitical calculations of realpolitik, versus ideological commitments to democracy, versus ambitions of expanding market share. Rather, beginning with an observation of the inextricability of the development of capitalism and the US as a nation, this chapter examines in what ways economic motivations, structures, and beliefs have appeared in US diplomacy; how centering capitalism shifts the definitions we have of terms like “US foreign relations” and “US global power”; and how this framework troubles concepts we might otherwise have left unexamined. This approach poses new methodological challenges: determining what scale(s) are most useful for studying capitalism; the problem of accessing private corporate archives; how to consider the role of the state in a study that places capitalism at its core; expanding the roster of actors in the history of US foreign relations; and considering how a focus on business and labor changes our understanding of the connections between US power abroad and at home.

This chapter offers, first, some how-to tips for close analysis of documents and other texts to uncover a greater range and depth of meaning. Examining the choice of words, the grammatical structures, and the leaps of logic within metaphors and other figures of speech can yield fresh insight into the assumptions, the categories of analysis, and the overt as well as the less conscious agendas of historical actors. Cadence, inflection, repetition, and even silences can in this sense “speak.xy4 Physical presentation, cultural practices, and personal behaviors can suggest how leaders oriented themselves toward others and their likely intents. Second, this chapter explains how historians can read sources for evidence of the interplay between more emotional and more rational modes of thinking. Historians studying the emotions do not need training in neuroscience or psychology. Rather, they need to read texts carefully and evaluate such evidence as discussion of emotion, words signifying emotion, emotion-provoking tropes, and bodily actions triggered by emotion. Also significant is language evidencing excited behaviors, ironies, silences – and the cultural milieus of these and other expressions. Like all historical evidence, such signs of emotion should be interpreted and contextualized rather than taken at face value.

The national security paradigm is a comprehensive framework or methodology that relates variables to one another and allows for diverse interpretations of American foreign policy in particular periods and contexts. National security policy encompasses the decisions and actions deemed imperative to protect domestic core values from external threats. This definition underscores the relationship of the international environment to the internal situation in the United States and accentuates the importance of people’s ideas and perceptions in constructing the nature of external dangers as well as the meaning of national identity, American ideals, and vital interests. This chapter outlines the key tasks to employ a national security methodology, beginning with identifying the key decision-makers, for example by reading memoirs, diaries, biographies, and oral histories. It then discusses the sources to use to appraise how these decision-makers assessed the intentions and capabilities of prospective foes, as well as perceptions of their own country’s strength and cohesion, the lessons of the past, the impact of technological innovations, and the structural patterns of the international system. The chapter emphasizes the importance of using empathy, understanding the core values of the past, and defining the meaning of power.

This chapter explores the relationship between technology and US national security. While it affirms the continuing importance of “traditional” historical subjects like war and diplomacy, it calls for scholars to bring more rigorous research and critical sophistication to bear on them. In other words, it calls for scholars to take a “process-based” approach to these historical subjects rather than the “outcome-based” approach favored by strategic studies scholars. It explains how the author came to study the relationship between technology and national security and how other scholars influenced her approach, which seeks to blend empiricism with theory and benefits from a comparative perspective. Next, the chapter offers tips for conducting broad and deep archival research, emphasizing the value of finding aids and the need to minimize reliance on intermediaries between the researcher and the evidence. It also offers tips on reading in and across subfields and disciplines. Finally, the chapter highlights the importance of taking technical matter, whether it be weapons technology or law, seriously on its own terms while also understanding its constructed nature.

What is ideology? How can we discern significant, enduring ideas from more fleeting ones? With these opening questions the chapter lays out some ways scholars might investigate the impact of ideology on international history. The chapter offers how-to insights for historians to examine worldviews, national visions, and personal biases as they have shaped US foreign relations. In so doing, we are reminded to always consider our own ideologies, preconceptions, and assumptions, regardless of whether those presuppositions are more or less obvious. The chapter singles out key contested concepts – such as “civilization” and empire – and suggests a focus on language and rhetoric in approaching this subject. Biography and a concentration on people and groups is crucial to any deep investigation of ideology. The cultural embeddedness and historical context of the actors and ideas we focus on is critical to this work. International and transnational dimensions of thought are virtually omnipresent in the historical record; so, too, one must keep in mind the shaping role of markets and economic ideas and the impact of competing forms of nationalism. Overall, the chapter emphasizes the relationship between norms and ideology, the significance of religion, along with themes such as power, progress, and democracy.

Historians of US foreign relations have much to gain by incorporating some of the methodological interventions made by scholars of race and Ethnic Studies. Drawing on research on US–Caribbean and US–Central American relations, this chapter tackles the following questions: What does it mean to study race as a central component, and not just a byproduct of US foreign relations? How does race appear in and outside of government archives? And what are some assumptions that require reassessment to ensure that US foreign relations scholars are not using –race– as a mere descriptor of –other–? A core component of the chapter is its combined use of field-specific observations and personal reflections amassed over the course of twenty years of research and writing. It does not propose one unified meaning of “race,” nor one specific method for examining race as an idea and practice. Instead, it maps out how the fields of African Diaspora Studies and Critical Ethnic Studies have expanded our understandings of racialization and racial formation, provides examples of effective approaches that draw from specific events and published works, outlines questions to ask before, during, and after conducting research, and invites researchers to recognize how archives function as racialized spaces.

In this chapter we apply the theoretical model we introduced earlier to the behaviour of leaders to find out what alarms them, and under what conditions they are able and willing to order repression. We do not argue that we can accurately predict and explain every act of violence and repression. But we show how it helps us understand empirical patterns of repression. This model can inform our assessment of when we are most likely to observe human rights violations. To explain how context shapes human rights violations, we concentrate on why political regimes influence leaders’ threat perceptions and why democracies have the best human rights records, and why they do not always guarantee the protection of everyone’s basic rights. We outline the influence of mass dissent and of socio-economic factors. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of how context shaped respect for human rights in six countries.