Ninth book by history professor David Schmitz is published

David Schmitz, Robert Allen Skotheim chair of history, has completed his ninth book, titled “Brent Scowcroft: Internationalism and Post-Vietnam War American Foreign Policy,” published by Rowman & Littlefield Inc.

Schmitz spent two years researching two-time national Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, including an in-person interview to produce the 256-page volume.  “I became interested in writing about Brent Scowcroft because  he is the only person to have served as national security advisor twice, for Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush,” Schmitz said. ”He served at two critical junctures, the end of the Vietnam War and the end of the Cold War. He represented continuity in his approach to foreign policy with the pre-Vietnam era, and he is a moderate Republican who opposed the neo-conservatives and the war in Iraq.  By studying his career I was able to examine much of American foreign policy during the post-Vietnam War era to the present.”

According to Schmitz, the intended audiences for the book range from general readers to scholars and teachers with an interest in American foreign policy and post-1945 U.S. history.

“This deeply researched book … offers much more than biography,” writes Mark Lawrence, assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin.  “Through the lens of Brent Scowcroft’s long career, Schmitz deftly analyzes the development of U.S. foreign policy since the Vietnam War.”

Next in line for Schmitz are two book projects, both of which are already underway.  The first is the study of the role of nationalism in the making of American foreign policy and the second is about Richard Nixon’s Vietnam policy.

Read more about Schmitz and his latest book in the March issue of the Whitman Magazine.

–Ashley Coetzee