Public | Feb, 9 2023 4:00PM - 5:15PM
The United States has waged wars, large and small, almost continually across two and a half centuries. No figure looms as large in that history as the American president, the embodiment of national will, the nation’s preeminent diplomat, and the commander in chief of its armed forces. How have presidents made decisions about war and peace? How have they balanced American ideals with defense of the nation’s interests? Why have they succeeded in achieving their goals in some cases but not in others?
This six-part virtual series explores these and other questions through lively conversations with eminent historians of American politics, diplomacy, and military affairs. Each session will begin with a moderated discussion led by LBJ Library Director Mark Lawrence but will allow ample time for questions from the audience. Over six weeks leading up to Presidents’ Day, we will sweep across American history from the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House to the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. We will examine presidents from Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, delving into their choices about war and peace as well as the implications of those decisions for the nation’s present and future.
Full schedule:
January 12 Charlie Laderman, King’s College London, on Woodrow Wilson and peacemaking after World War I
January 19 Elizabeth Varon, University of Virginia, on Abraham Lincoln and the end of the Civil War
January 26 Marc Selverstone, Miller Center for Public Affairs, University of Virginia, on John F. Kennedy and the escalation of the Vietnam War
February 2 William Inboden, University of Texas at Austin, on Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War
February 9 Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Columbia University, on Richard Nixon and the end of America’s war in Vietnam
February 16 Melvyn Leffler, University of Virginia, on George W. Bush and the road to war in Iraq
Format
We will be using a Zoom webinar. Each session will begin with a moderated discussion led by LBJ Library Director Mark Lawrence but will allow ample time for questions from the audience.
Registration
Advance registration is required. You only need to register once for the series; you do not need to register for each week’s session. Once you register, you can expect to receive an email with a link to join the event. Questions about registration? Email utolli@austin.utexas.edu.
About the speaker:
On February 9, 2023, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen will join us to talk about Richard Nixon and the end of America’s war in Vietnam.
Lien-Hang T. Nguyen is the Dorothy Borg Associate Professor in the History of the United States and East Asia and Director of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University. She is the co-founder of Vietnamese Studies and offers courses on Modern Vietnamese History, the Wars for Indochina, and US-East Asian Relations. She is the author of Hanoi's War: An International History of the War for Peace and the general editor of the forthcoming three-volume Cambridge History of the Vietnam War. She is currently writing a comprehensive history of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Professor Nguyen also serves on the Board of Trustees of Fulbright University Vietnam.
