American Diplomatic History: The State of the Art

American Diplomatic History: The Stateof the Art Richard DeanBurns,ed. Guide to American Foreign Relationssince 1700.Sa~ta Barbara: ABC-Clio, Inc., 1983.1311+ xxv1pp. Gerald K.Hainesand J. Samuel Walker,eds. American ForeignRelations: AHistoriographical Review. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981.369 + xiiipp. Paul GordonLauren, ed. Diplomacy: New Approaches inHistory, Theo,y, and Policy. New York:The Free Press, 1979.286 + xvipp. F.M. Carroll GordonA. Craig, in his 1982Presidential Address to the American Historical Association, "The Historian and the Study of International Relations," focusedhis remarks on the paradoxical situation that characterizes the currentposition of diplomatic history. Despite the turbulent and often disillusioningrecord of international relations since 1945, both student and professionalinterest in diplomatic history has waned in recent years. Citing therecords of the American Historical Association's annual meetings during theperiod from 1976to 1982, Craig noted only five sessions per year out of 128 dealt with what he would call international relations. This decline of interesthas been reflected in university departments, curricula and course enrollments. Indeed the appearance in the last six years of the journals Diplomatic History in the United States and The International History Reviewin Canada was as much a response to the declining proportion of articleson the history of international relations that appeared in the major historicaljournals in the 1960s and early 1970s as it was the result of the maturation of diplomatic historians. Nevertheless, while this erosion has beentaking place. Craig observes, the writing of international history has becomemore sophisticated and penetrating. "We are a long way," he says, "fromthe time when the standard monograph in diplomatic history was literallycopied out of the bound volumes of the Foreign Office papers in thePublic Record Office, tricked out with Latin tags and formidably arcane Canadian Reviewof American Studies, Volume 15,Number 2,Summer1984,221-227 222 F.M.Carrol/ footnotes, and set forth to grace the lower shelves of university libraries:·1 In other words, no longer can diplomatic history be dismissed by the quanti· fiers and social historians with G. M.Young's pitiless remark that it is"little more than the record of what one clerk said to another clerk," a reputation out from under which diplomatic historians have been struggling to climb ever since.2 Current writings are likely to examine topics, Craig suggests, ''like the moral and intellectual roots and assumptions of national policv. domestic factors as determinants of policy, interagency competition in decision making, public opinion and the way in which it is influenced bythe media, comparative political systems and ideological convergence, and much else" (p. 3). It is more than a matter of coincidence that these three books have appeared within several years of each other. Together they constitute something of a definition of the current state of diplomatic history-the state-of· the-art, as it were. For people working in the area, these books come asno surprise and indeed have been a long time maturing. The last twenty years have seen an enormous amount of "professionalization" among the diplo· matic historians, particularly those interested in American foreign affairs. The founding of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) in 1967 was a major step in bringing some precise focusto scholarly activities in this field. SHAFR began by holding joint sessionswith the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians and by publishing a Newsletter and a membership roster witha list of research interests. By the end of its first decade, however, SHAFRwas also holding its own annual conference, offering prizes and lectureships. lobbying for a more satisfactory policy of release and publication of United States government documents, and sponsoring publications such as the journal Diplomatic Histo,y and the Guide under review in this essay.Much of the energy of SHAFR, in its joint-sessions, luncheons, conferences, lee· tures and Newsletter articles has been devoted to an on-going promotion of this process of "professionalization" through discussions of the nature of diplomatic history as well as through criticism of its bibliography, historiog· raphy and methodology. In a sense these three books are the result of both the direct and indirect influence of SHAFR's efforts. Craig spoke of the incredible diversity of topics and techniques in...