The Technology Factor in International Trade

This incisive interpretation of American foreign policy ranks as a classic in American thought. First published in 1959, the book offered an analysis of the wellsprings of American foreign policy that shed light on the tensions of the Cold War and the deeper impulses leading to the American intervention in Vietnam. William Appleman Williams brilliantly explores the ways in which ideology and political economy intertwined over time to propel American expansion and empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The powerful relevance of Williams's interpretation to world politics has only been strengthened by recent events in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. Williams allows us to see that the interests and beliefs that once sent American troops into Texas and California, or Latin America and East Asia, also propelled American forces into Iraq.

The Tragedy of American Diplomacy

http://phr.ucpress.edu/content/ucpphr/65/2/277.full.pdf

From Open Door to World Systems: Economic Interpretations of Late Nineteenth Century American Foreign Relations

Introduction 1. NSC 68 and the problem of origins 2. Multilateralism, the Soviet threat, and the origins of the Cold War 3. Multilateralism, the dollar gap, and the origins of the Cold War 4. The dollar gap and its discontents 5. The British sterling-dollar crisis of 1949-50 6. The origins and development of NSC 68 7. The political economy of rearmament Conclusion.

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NSC 68 and the Political Economy of the Early Cold War

Historians of various “schools” have seen quite different things in the United States’ long years of business activity in China. The “realists” as Professor Hunt calls them, deny that significant business opportunities existed for Americans and point to obstacles that the Chinese put in the way of trade; the “Wisconsin school,” he says, emphasizes the public rhetoric of officials and businessmen who saw China as an outlet for capitalist surpluses. Citing three case histories — kerosene, cigarettes, and textiles — Professor Hunt shows that generalization is dangerous; that success depended more on businessmen's own skill, resources, and control of their domestic industry than on help derived from an imperialistically minded government.

Americans in the China Market: Economic Opportunities and Economic Nationalism, 1890s-1931

W ILLIAM APPLEMAN WILLIAMS has argued that American manufacturers needed and sought foreign markets to solve problems created by the depression of the 1890s.1 The response of the important steel industry to the depression challenges the Williams interpretation and the generation of diplomatic historians influenced by it.2 Studying the history of the industry3 between 1893 and 1913 indicates, first, that the major thrust of activity to solve depression-related problems was domestic. Secondly, the systematic search for foreign markets occurred after the depression of the 1890s and because manufacturers had in fact solved many problems created by the depression.

Foreign Markets for Iron and Steel, 1893-1913: A New Perspective on the Williams School of Diplomatic History

civilization ... might have prevailed and produced a different course of conduct."20 By misunderstanding this essential argument of the revisionists, Becker has produced a paper that for the most part is irrelevant to or actually supports their interpretation. In conclusion, Becker has written a confusing and ambiguous paper. His treatment of the iron and steel industry is simplistic and often inaccurate. It certainly does not undermine revisionist scholarship nor lay the basis for a reinterpretation of American foreign policy. If taken seriously, the Becker article can only add to the already acrimonious debate between orthodox and revisionist historians, and thereby retard the state of the art of American diplomatic history.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/3638006

William H. Becker

Papers

Foreign Markets for Iron and Steel, 1893-1913: A New Perspective on the Williams School of Diplomatic History

Response by William H. Becker