The Diplomatic History Bandwagon: A State of the Field

Studying discourse is fruitful, but the state is relegated to a secondary role in American history at the peril of losing a sense of the nature of power, who captures it, who loses it, and how it is deployed. [...]a subtext of this essay is that diplomatic historians, by investigating both private and public archives, and nation-states as well as transnational exchanges, appreciate how power functions at home and abroad. A "rally-around-the-flag" ideology also underpinned the mentalités of other U.S. groups in the Cold War, as John Fousek argues. [...]an elite-based "ideology of American nationalist globalism" persuaded "out-groups" such as minorities and workers to curb their militant protests and support the Cold War state consensus and the belief that America was obligated, even destined, to confront global Communism.14 Diplomatic historians are sensitive to the notion that post-World War II American foreign relations were shaped, in part, by ideological considerations. [...]one of the most dynamic areas of study involves turning inward to characterize how the nation's cultural features played out in an international context.32 That is, like historians of American culture, diplomatic historians seek to define what it is to be American, arguing for the importance of that identity in the making of U.S. foreign policy. [...]the tools of research are abundant, the sources accessible, and the methodologies evolving for diplomatic historians to engage the larger profession in the importance of the state, while moving the field toward the majority's embrace of ideas, the international, and identity.