In Democracy in Exile, Daniel Bessner explores the life of Hans Speier, one of the most significant figures in the history of US defense policy. Bessner traces Speier's intellectual development from Weimar Germany to the Cold War United States, revealing how his European roots shaped the expert-driven approach to foreign policymaking that American elites institutionalized during and after World War II. A key figure in a transatlantic network of émigré policymakers and analysts, Speier helped establish novel institutions like the RAND Corporation that transformed how US foreign policy was made. Democracy in Exile highlights how social scientists like Speier left academia to create a "military-intellectual complex" that insulated American decision-making from public opinion, and which continues to shape US defense policy today.
Anyone interested in the history of U.S. foreign relations, Cold War history, and twentieth century intellectual history will find this impressive biography of Hans Speier, one of the most influential figures in American defense circles of the twentieth century, a must-read.In Democracy in Exile, Daniel Bessner shows how the experience of the...
