Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems
Edited by Klaus Knorr
x, 390 pages, 6 x 9
Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-0143-1, $14.95
This book provides historical
perspectives on general problems in national security policy
that have recurred through history. In eight original essays
prepared expressly for this volume, a group of political scientists
and historians demonstrates that the study of historical experience
can greatly benefit the study of national security problems in
the contemporary world.
The plan for this volume was generated by widespread concern
over the neglect of history in the study and teaching of national
security and related problems in international relations. The
student chronically thinks that everything he sees is happening
for the first time; the experience of past societies in dealing
with similar problems goes unnoticed.
The authors are evenly divided between historians and political
scientists. They exhibit diverse ways of bringing historical
knowledge to bear on contemporary issues. Taken together, their
essays exemplify how historical study can enrich the social sciences.
This volume can be used in any course dealing with the wide
range of issues and processes at work in national security affairs.
It is hoped that, by demonstrating the pertinence of serious
study of historical experience in order to comprehend the present,
it will help to bring about an end to the neglect of history
in national security education.
KLAUS KNORR is William Stewart Todd Professor of Public
Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, and coeditor
of Economic Issues and National Security.
CONTRIBUTORS: Klaus Knorr, Allan R. Millett, William
B. Moreland, Russell F. Weigley, Peter Karsten, Charles H. Fairbanks,
Paul W. Schroeder, Bernard Brodie, Thomas L. Pangle
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