Alonzo Hamby is a distinguished historian and professor emeritus at Ohio University, widely recognized as a leading scholar of Harry S. Truman and twentieth-century American political history. He contributed book reviews and essays to The Weekly Standard from 2006 to 2018, covering topics in American history, presidential leadership, and political biography. His scholarly expertise informed thoughtful assessments of works on war, diplomacy, and the American political tradition.
The Herbert Hoover of historical memory is a distant person, mostly recalled as the president who presided ineffectually over the early years of the Great Depression. Kenneth Whyte’s fine full-life biography reminds us that Hoover was himself a man of action and a remarkable American success story.…
It may be counterintuitive to imagine cheers for a conservative midwestern Republican senator from Democratic partisans, but during the early years of the Cold War, Arthur H. Vandenberg routinely received such accolades. Breaking with the isolationist right of his own party, the Michigan senator…
Franklin D. Roosevelt, meeting with his son Elliott at the beginning of the Casablanca conference in January 1943, went out of his way to voice his revulsion at the ugliness of British imperialism by referring to his transit through the tiny British colony of Gambia:
In academia, scholars trying to get ahead look for the Next Big Thing. In the field of American foreign relations, that just may be something called “public diplomacy,” a term that conjures a vision of diplomatic efforts aimed not simply at other diplomats but at large populations. Justin Hart,…
The first master’s thesis defense committee on which I served, more years ago than I care to count, evaluated an effort titled “Liberal Deviations of Robert A. Taft, 1945-1953.” As a young assistant professor still intoxicated by a heady academic liberal consensus, I was prone to dismiss the…
Yalta 1945
Woodrow Wilson
A Safe Haven
Truman & MacArthur
Partners in Command
The First Cold Warrior