Government

IR Talk

IR Talk is a podcast on the history, theory, and practice of international relations. Each week, Elan Kluger, a high school student passionate about international relations interviews a historian, lawyer, ambassador, political scientist, or someone else somehow involved in international relations. Listen along for inside look into the way international relations actually works.

Latest Episodes:

S2 E15: Bonus Episode - Henry Kissinger with Professor Jeremi Suri Apr 21, 2022

Show notes

Professor Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of numerous books including Henry Kissinger and the American Century, The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office and many other excellent works. The following are books and articles pertinent to our conversation today:

Henry Kissinger and the American Century

The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office

Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente

Liberty's Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama

S2 E14: Bonus Episode - Israel's Moment with Professor Jeffrey Herf Apr 14, 2022

Show notes

Note: This episode was recorded on March 3, 2022 so any reference to political events are from that time.

Professor Jeffrey is distinguished professor of history at the University of Maryland. He is the author of numerous books on Germany as well as Israel, including Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left 1967-1989, and his latest Israel’s Moment: International Support for and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945-1949 which was published on April 14th, the release date of this episode. The following are books and articles pertinent to our conversation today:

Israel's Moment: International Support for and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945–1949

Putin’s Continuities: From ‘Israelis as Nazis’ to ‘Denazifying’ Ukraine (Times of Israel)

Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World

Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich

Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967–1989

S2 E13: Bonus Episode - The uses of history with Professor Daniel Sargent Mar 03, 2022

Show notes

Professor Sargent is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, where he holds a dual appointment with the history department and the Goldman School of Public Policy. Professor Sargent is the author of the brilliant A Superpower Transformed: The Remaking of American Foreign Relations in the 1970s. The following are books and articles pertinent to our conversation today:

Forum on the Importance of the Scholarship of Ernest May

A Superpower Transformed: The Remaking of American Foreign Relations in the 1970s

Pax Americana: Sketches for an Undiplomatic History

Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition

The Origins of Alliances

Rebecca Herman

S2 E12: Bonus Episode - The End of Ambition with Professor Mark Atwood Lawrence Feb 17, 2022

Show notes

Professor Lawrence is the Director of the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, as well an Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author and editor of numerous books including The Vietnam War: A Concise International History, and The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era which is the subject of our conversation this week. The following are books and articles pertinent to our conversation today:

The End of Ambition

The Vietnam War: A Concise International History

Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam

Mission Intolerable: Harrison Salisbury's Trip to Hanoi and the Limits of Dissent against the Vietnam War

Too Late or Too Soon? Debating the Withdrawal from Vietnam in the Age of Iraq

S2 E11: Season 2 Finale Jan 13, 2022

Show notes

This is the finale for Season 2 of IR Talk. Tune in for every answer to the question of "Did Athenians Students in the time of the Peloponnesian War know more than current students?"

Make sure to look out for a few bonus episodes that will be released during the next few weeks!

S2 E10: German-Israeli Relations 1949-1969 with Professor Lorena De Vita Jan 06, 2022

Show notes

Professor Lorena De Vita is an Assistant Professor in the History of International Relations at the University of Utrecht. She is the author of Israelpolitik: German-Israeli Relations, 1949-1969. The following are books and articles pertinent to our conversation today:

Israelpolitik: German–Israeli Relations, 1949-69

New Bottles for New Wine: A Pericentric Framework for the Study of the Cold War

Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice

After the Berlin Wall: Memory and the Making of the New Germany, 1989 to the Present

Jena Center for 20th Century History

The Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History

S2 E9: Economic Diplomacy and International Adoption with Dr. Diane Kunz Dec 16, 2021

Show notes

Dr. Diane Kunz is the Executive Director of the Center for Adoption Policy. She has also taught diplomatic history at Yale, Columbia, and Duke. Prior to her diplomatic history work, Dr. Kunz was a corporate lawyer, working at White & Case and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. She is the author of numerous books including Butter and Guns: The Economic Diplomacy of the Cold War and a forthcoming work on the diplomatic, economic, and social history of US international adoption. The following are books and articles pertinent to our conversation today:

Butter and Guns: America's Cold War Economic Diplomacy

The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis

The Battle for Britain's Gold Standard in 1931

Center for Adoption Policy

Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography

The Republic of Vietnam, 1955–1975: Vietnamese Perspectives on Nation Building

S2 E8: James & Sarah Polk and the Mexican-American War with Professor Amy Greenberg Dec 09, 2021

Show notes

Professor Amy Greenberg is the George Winfree Professor of History and Women's Studies at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of numerous books including A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico and Lady First: The World of First Lady Sarah Polk. The following are books and articles pertinent to our conversation:

Lady First: The World of First Lady Sarah Polk

A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico

James K. Polk, Vol. 1: Jacksonian, 1795-1843

James K. Polk, Volume II: Continentalist, 1843-1846

Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions

The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789

Met His Every Goal? James K. Polk and the Legends of Manifest Destiny

S2 E7: Brent Scowcroft and the National Security Council with Professor Bartholomew Sparrow Dec 02, 2021

Show notes

Professor Bartholomew Sparrow is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of numerous books including The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security which is the subject of our conversation this week. The following are books and articles pertinent to our conversation today:

The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security

The National Security Council

Jacob Burckhardt

Uncertain Guardians: The News Media as a Political Institution

S2 E6: The Helsinki Accords with Professor Michael Morgan Nov 18, 2021

Show notes

Professor Michael Morgan is an Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation and the Cold War. The following are books and articles pertinent to our conversation today:

The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation and the Cold War

S1 E7: John Lewis Gaddis

Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan

A Diplomatic Revolution by Matthew Connelly

Power and Protest by Jeremi Suri

The Sino-Soviet Split by Lorenz Luthi

Robert Bothwell

Strategies of Containment by John Lewis Gaddis

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Paul Kennedy

Brutality in an Age of Human Rights British Empire by Brian Drohan

The Regime Change Consensus by Joseph Stieb