Faculty Development Grant Report

This grant provided invaluable support for my recently completed book entitled The League of Nations: Enduring Legacies of the First Experiment at World Organization (Routledge Global Institutions Series, 2018). The League of Nations occupies a fascinating yet paradoxical place in human history. Over time, it has come to symbolize both a path to peace and to war, a promising vision of world order and a utopian illusion, an artifact of a bygone era and a beacon for one that may still come. As the first experiment in world organization, the League played a pivotal, but often overlooked role in the creation of the United Nations and the modern architecture of global governance. In contrast to conventional accounts, which chronicle the institution’s successes and failures during the interwar period, the book explores the enduring relevance of the League of Nations for the present and future of global politics. The book asks: What are the legacies of the League experiment? How do they inform current debates on the health of global order and US leadership? Is there a “dark side” to these legacies? The grant also supported earlier stages of another project: Dead Wrong: Are We Learning the Right Lessons from the 2003 Iraq War? Many have called the 2003 decision to invade Iraq the greatest strategic blunder in American history. Yet for the last decade, most debates surrounding the war have centered on events set in motion once the war began: a botched occupation, the relative success of the “surge,” and the rise of ISIS. This project returns the focus to the decision to go to war itself, revisiting the vital context necessary to understand it and in turn revealing previously obscured lessons that have enduring relevance today