Democracy in Exile

Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual

By: Daniel Bessner

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Hardcover | 15 April 2018 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
312 Pages

Age
18+

Dimensions(cm)
23.7 x 16 x 2.8

Hardcover

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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 Weimar Republic's collapse and the rise of Nazism informed Hans Speier's work as an American policymaker and institution builder. Bessner delves into Speier's intellectual development, illuminating the ideological origins of the expert-centered approach to foreign policymaking and revealing the European roots of Cold War liberalism.

Democracy in Exile places Speier at the center of the influential and fascinating transatlantic network of policymakers, many of them German emigres, who struggled with the tension between elite expertise and democratic politics. Speier was one of the most prominent intellectuals among this cohort, and Bessner traces his career, in which he advanced from university intellectual to state expert, holding a key position at the RAND Corporation and serving as a powerful consultant to the State Department and Ford Foundation, across the mid-twentieth century. Bessner depicts the critical role Speier played in the shift in American intellectual history in which hundreds of social scientists left their universities and contributed to the creation of an expert-based approach to U.S. foreign relations, in the process establishing close connections between governmental and nongovernmental organizations. As Bessner writes: to understand the rise of the defense intellectual, we must understand Hans Speier.

Industry Reviews

Speier began his academic career studying the sociology of knowledge, and after he arrived in the United States, he directed the U.S. government's propaganda effort against Germany. The debates recounted in Bessner's biography between Speier and other officials over how to develop effective campaigns are particularly fascinating in the context of contemporary worries about information warfare.

* Foreign Affairs *

Democracy in Exile is directly relevant to a number of contemporary debates, not just about foreign policy but on the nature of politics itself.... As a resurgent left begins to think what its foreign policy should look like, Daniel Bessner's sympathetic, yet critical, book on Hans Speier is an important study to consider.

* Los Angeles Review of Books *

Bessner's archival work here has turned up many gems.... [Speier's] story leaves us with questions about the relationship between expert decision making and democracy that defy easy solution, and it is to Bessner's credit that he is unwilling to draw hasty conclusions.

* The Globe Post *

A revealing look at a thinker burned by populist upheaval who worried that 'man's nature makes the realization of the good order impossible.'

* Shepherd Express *

An honest and impressively compiled reminder to policy-oriented givers, grant recipients, and policymakers about some of the concerning anti-democratic roots of modern establishment philanthropy-and its understanding of the relationship between knowledge and power.

* Real Clear Books *

Daniel Bessner's outstanding biography of the eminent and influential social scientist Hans Speier charts his intellectual and political efforts to promote democracy in the Weimar Republic.

* Technology and Culture *

This book skillfully navigates between an argument for Speier's historical importance and a critique of his ideas.

* German History *

Bessner's Democracy in Exile, therefore, stacks up with the best in contemporary history that is powerfully relevant to current debates concerning foreign policy. The book shows how and why it is important to think carefully about democracy and the role scholars and intellectuals contribute to its survival.

* H-Net *

Bessner's biography of Speier is an excellent case study of a transatlantic crossing linking Europe's interwar crises with Ameri- ca's permanent national security state.

* American Historical Review *

Daniel Bessner's Democracy in Exile makes a vital contribution to this growing area of scholarship. Most importantly, it presents a vivid portrait of Hans Speier, a figure known only in the world of defense policy analysis.

* The Journal of American History *

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