This edition of the Hoover institution Briefing on Revitalizing History includes major conferences held in the last three months in which leading historians asked if America, armed with lessons it learned in its past, is ready to confront today’s rivals. It also explores the implications of drone warfare, the latest activities of the Library & Archives, and an examination of significant counterfactual scenarios.
FEATURED ANALYSIS
Hoover Military Experts Chart the History of Proxy Wars, from Ancient Greece to Ukraine and Gaza
Hoover fellows and scholars affiliated with the institution’s Military History in Contemporary Conflict Working Group explored the history and use of proxy wars and what they mean for modern great-power competition, at the working group’s annual workshop on March 22, 2024.
The group talked about proxy wars dating back to ancient Greece, how they led to larger major global conflicts in history, the US experience with proxy wars, and the status of conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and with Iran’s proxies across the Middle East.
The workshop was chaired by Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson and organized by research fellow David Berkey and senior program manager Megan Ring.
The workshop featured four presentations: “The Origins and Rules of Proxy Wars,” by Visiting Fellow Paul Rahe; “Proxy Wars and Cold War Superpowers,” by Distinguished Visiting Fellow Josef Joffe; “Post–World War II and Middle East Proxy Wars,” with Michael Doran; and “Ukraine and Gaza,” by Center for Naval Analysis senior research scientist Michael Kofman and Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow Peter Berkowitz.
Click here to read more.
The Latest from Strategika
Click here to read the working group’s latest issue of Strategika, featuring three essays, as well as companion commentaries, examining the legal framework around the use of drones as weapons, how drones have changed the battlefield (drawing on experiences from the Russia-Ukraine war), and what the use of drones in armed conflict means for the future.
Hoover Institution Hosts Latest History Lab Symposium, Focused on “Cold Wars”
The Hoover Institution’s History Working Group, chaired by Milbank Family Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson, hosted its latest spring History Lab Symposium on May 14, 2024. This year’s theme was “Cold Wars.”
In the Annenberg Conference Room of the newly constructed George P. Shultz Building, historians and academics from history-related fields convened to discuss nine papers that focus on the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union from 1947 to 1987, contrasting it with the current China-US antagonism and other historical examples of rivalries that resembled cold wars.
Throughout the symposium, three distinct interpretations of today’s environment emerged.
In one, Ferguson and other scholars, including Canadian technology lawyer George Takach and Sergey Radchenko of Johns Hopkins University, contend that the United States and China are already engaged in “Cold War II,” where the competition is largely technological in nature but could involve armed conflict over locales such as Taiwan.
In a second interpretation, some scholars argued that the US-China relationship is not as fractious as the Soviet-US one, and that the United States and China are simultaneously competing and collaborating on an issue-by-issue basis.
In a third, championed by scholars including Botha-Chan Senior Fellow Philip Zelikow, the United States is not enveloped in a new Cold War with China but with a wider anti-US axis that also includes Russia, Iran, North Korea, and a host of nonstate actors.
Click here to read more.
To read about the Fall 2023 History Symposium, in which scholars explored monetary and financial innovation patterns, click here.
The Counterfactual Show: Reimagining History, with Stephen Kotkin
Historians differ over the need to explore “counterfactuals”—the study of scenarios that never happened—and what they can tell us about historical causation.
In a recent episode of Hoover’s GoodFellows, Kleinheinz Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin joined Niall Ferguson and Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow John Cochrane to discuss alternative historical outcomes: Stalin not surviving a two-front invasion in World War II and Churchill dying well beforehand; the American Revolution failing; the Beatles never spearheading pop music’s British Invasion; a Trump victory in 2020 and its potential effect on the current state of affairs in Ukraine and the Middle East; plus a world in which COVID never happened.
Click here to watch the full episode.
LIBRARY & ARCHIVES NEWS
Documenting Communism, by Charles G. Palm
The Hoover Institution Press, in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives, has released Documenting Communism: The Hoover Project to Microfilm and Publish the Soviet Archives. In it, former Hoover Institution deputy director Charles Palm writes about his twelve-year effort to secure, microfilm, and eventually publish more than ten million pages of documents from the Soviet archives.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 presented a rare opportunity: a new regime ready to unlock the secret archives of the former Soviet Communist Party and state. The Hoover Institution, whose own archives document a century of war, revolution, and peace, worked quickly to seize the moment.
Among the ten million pages Palm led efforts to secure were records of the central organs of the Communist Party; the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), which regulated the ordinary lives of the Russian people; the GULAG, the secret police department that ran the forced labor camps; and the 1992 trial of the Communist Party.
Click here to order Documenting Communism.
Reflections Video Series
In Reflections, the Library & Archives’ new storytelling video series, Hoover scholars and expert curators describe the significance and historical context of important Institution documents, artifacts, and collections. Three episodes have been released since the last Revitalizing History briefing.
Our latest episodes include Charles Palm on the Soviet microfilm project as described above in the release of Documenting Communism; Research Fellow Abbas Milani on how the papers of the late Iran foreign affairs minister Ardashir Zahedi shed light on the 1953 coup in that country; and Research Fellow Jennifer Burns, who reveals insights from Milton Friedman’s papers on the causes of the Great Depression.
Marking the 150-Year Legacy of Lou Henry Hoover
The year 2024 marks the sesquicentennial of the birth of Lou Henry Hoover (1874–1944). A remarkable person and independent woman ahead of her time, she brought her intellect and hardworking spirit to all her many roles in life —scientist, author, mother, Girl Scout leader, and First Lady of the United States.
In celebration of this milestone anniversary, the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Stanford Libraries, and the Hoover Institution Library & Archives presented various educational programs.
The commemoration included the publication of a digital story about Lou Henry’s life and legacy; a photo exhibition at Stanford’s GeoCorner Building and at Branner Library; a carillon concert from the Lou Henry Hoover Observation Deck at top of the Hoover Tower; and a lecture by Anette Dunlap, author of A Woman of Adventure: The Life and Times of First Lady Lou Henry Hoover.
Inaugural Course Introduces Hoover Library & Archives to Stanford Students
In winter quarter 2024, Stanford’s international relations program offered War, Revolution, and Peace: The View from Hoover Tower, the first-ever course designed to introduce Stanford students to the history, collections, and operations of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
The class had an enrollment of 44 students, almost entirely undergraduates. Hoover research fellow Bert Patenaude, the instruction and outreach archivist at the Library & Archives, served as course coordinator.
The Library & Archives also hosted several Stanford class visits including students enrolled in other courses: Soviet Literature after Stalin’s Death; Peoples, Armies, and Governments of the Second World War; and The United States in the Twentieth Century.
Click here for more Library & Archives news, including the latest collection acquisitions and educational programs.
Click here to watch recordings of recent L&A Events.
For more insight on Revitalizing History visit: https://www.hoover.org/focus-areas/revitalizing-history
