John Lewis Gaddis

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John Lewis Gaddis (born April 2, 1941) is an American Cold War historian, political scientist, and writer. He is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University.<ref name="yam">Template:Cite web</ref> He is best known for his work on the Cold War and grand strategy,<ref name="yam"/> and he has been hailed as the "Dean of Cold War Historians" by The New York Times.<ref name = "NYT WNK">Template:Cite news</ref> Gaddis is also the official biographer of the prominent 20th-century American diplomat and historian George F. Kennan.<ref>Template:Cite news
Profile of Kennan on his 100th birthday, includes several paragraphs detailing his relationship with Gaddis.</ref> George F. Kennan: An American Life (2011), his biography of Kennan, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.<ref name = "Pulitzer 2012">Template:Cite web</ref>

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Biography

Gaddis attended the University of Texas at Austin, receiving his B.A. in 1963, M.A. in 1965, and Ph.D. in 1968,<ref name = "Gaddis Leffler">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name = "Princeton bio">Template:Cite web</ref> the latter under the direction of Robert Divine. Gaddis then taught briefly at Indiana University Southeast, before joining Ohio University in 1969.<ref name = "Gaddis Leffler"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> At Ohio, he founded and directed the Contemporary History Institute,<ref name = "OUT 1990">Template:Cite journal</ref> and was named a distinguished professor in 1983.<ref name = "Gaddis Leffler"/>

In the 1975–77 academic years, Gaddis was a visiting professor of Strategy at the Naval War College. In the 1992–93 academic year, he was the Harmsworth Visiting professor of American History at Oxford.<ref name="Harmsworth Prof">Template:Cite web</ref> He has also held visiting positions at Princeton University and the University of Helsinki. He served as president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in 1992.<ref name = "SHAFR President">Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1997, he moved to Yale University to become the Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History. In the 2000–01 academic year, Gaddis was the George Eastman Professor at Oxford, the second scholar (after Robin Winks) to have the honor of being both Eastman and Harmsworth professor.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name ="AARS Eastman">Template:Cite web</ref> He sits on the advisory committee of the Wilson Center's Cold War International History Project,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which he helped establish in 1991.<ref name = "NHM 2005"/> Gaddis is also known for his close relationship with the late George Kennan and his wife, whom Gaddis described as "my companions".<ref name = "NYRB review">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Scholarship

Gaddis is a well-known historian for his writing about the Cold War.<ref name = "Painter 2006 527">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Perhaps his most famous work is Strategies of Containment (1982; rev. 2005),<ref name = "Leffler 1999 503">Template:Harvnb, which describes Strategies of Containment as "one of the most influential books ever written on post-World War II international relations."</ref> which analyzes the theory and practice of containment that was employed against the Soviet Union by Cold War American presidents. His 1983 distillation of post-revisionist scholarship also guided Cold War research.<ref name = "Hogan 1987 494">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

We Now Know (1997) presented an analysis of the Cold War through the Cuban Missile Crisis that incorporated new archival evidence from the Soviet bloc.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name = "Leffler 1999 502">Template:Harvnb.</ref> It is one of the first attempts to write the Cold War's history after it ended.<ref name = "LRB WNK">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

The Cold War (2005) is an examination of the history and effects of the Cold War in a more removed context,<ref name = "Ikenberry 2006">Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name="globe">Template:Cite news</ref> and won Gaddis the 2006 Harry S. Truman Book Prize.<ref name = "Truman Book">Template:Cite web</ref> Critics were less impressed, with Tony Judt summarising the book as "a history of America's cold war: as seen from America, as experienced in America, and told in a way most agreeable to many American readers,"<ref name = "Judt 2006">Template:Harvnb.</ref> and David S. Painter writing that it was a "carefully crafted defense of US policy and policymakers" that was "not comprehensive."<ref name = "Painter 2006 527"/>

Gaddis's 2011 biography of George Kennan garnered multiple prizes, including a Pulitzer.<ref name = "Pulitzer 2012"/>

John Nagl described Gaddis's 2018 book On Grand Strategy as "a book that should be read by every American leader or would-be leader".<ref name="NaglWSJ">Template:Cite news</ref>

Gaddis is known for arguing that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's personality and role in history constituted one of the most important causes of the Cold War. Within the field of U.S. diplomatic history, he was originally most associated with the concept of post-revisionism, the idea of moving past the revisionist and orthodox interpretations of the origins of the Cold War to embrace what were (in the 1970s) interpretations based upon the then-growing availability of government documents from the United States, Great Britain and other western government archives.Template:Citation needed Due to his growing focus on Stalin and leanings toward US nationalism, Gaddis is now widely seen as more orthodox than post-revisionist.<ref>America in the World: The Historiography of US Foreign Relations Since 1941, edited by Michael J. Hogan (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p.8-10</ref><ref>"The Origins of the Cold War" Seth Center, University of Virginia</ref> Revisionist historian Bruce Cumings had a debate with Gaddis in the 1990s, in which Cumings criticized Gaddis as moralistic and lacking in objectivity.<ref>America in the World: The Historiography of US Foreign Relations Since 1941, edited by Michael J. Hogan (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p.10-14</ref>

Political views

During the US invasion of Iraq, Gaddis argued: "The world now must be made safe for democracy, and this is no longer just an idealistic issue; it's an issue of our own safety."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> During the United States occupation of Iraq, Gaddis asserted that Bush had established America "as a more powerful and purposeful actor within the international system than it had been on September 11, 2001." Historian James Chace argues that Gaddis supports an "informal imperial policy abroad."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Gaddis believes that preventive war is a constructive part of American tradition, and that there is no meaningful difference between preventive and pre-emptive war.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

About the First Trump presidency he said, "We may have been overdue for some reconsideration of the whole political system. There are times when the vision is not going to come from within the system and the vision is going to come from outside the system. And maybe this is one of those times."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life

Gaddis was born in Cotulla, Texas, the son of Harry Passmore Gaddis and his wife Isabel Florence (Maltsberger) Gaddis.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He is close to President George W. Bush, making suggestions to his speech writers,<ref>Template:Harvnb.
Template:Harvnb criticizes Gaddis for holding a "relatively positive assessment" of post-9/11 Bush foreign policy.</ref> and has been described as an "overt admirer" of the 43rd President.<ref name = "Grdn rev 2012">Template:Cite news</ref> After leaving office, Bush took up painting as a hobby at Gaddis's recommendation.<ref name="Yale News">Template:Cite web</ref> Gaddis is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards and distinctions

U.S. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush standing with 2005 National Humanities Medal recipient John Lewis Gaddis on November 10, 2005, in the Oval Office at the White House.

Selected publications

Books

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Articles and chapters

See also

References

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Bibliography

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