"In Search of Monsters to Destroy? A Brief History of the Idea of U.S. National Security"
The Mershon Center for International Security Studies celebrates the installation of Christopher McKnight Nichols as Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies. In collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Inaugural Lecture Series, sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, we invite you to join us for a reception and lecture in the Faculty Club Grand Lounge from 4-6 p.m. All lectures are free and open to the public and will also be live-streamed.
Wayne Woodrow "Woody" Hayes Chair in National Security Studies and Professor of History Christopher McKnight Nichols will provide a brief, dynamic exploration of the idea of U.S. national security. Using John Quincy Adams' July 4, 1821 declaration that the U.S. goes "not abroad in search of monsters to destroy" as a point of departure, Nichols will explore key moments in the historical development of U.S. foreign relations as an intellectual and political project. The talk will pay particular attention to the role of ideology and emotion and of phrases such as “entangling alliances,” “guardian of liberty,” "arsenal of democracy," "indispensable nation," and even "America First." This is a history that shapes our present era and can reveal new ways in which older ideas, developments, and pivotal moments have profoundly shaped our world today.
Speaker
Christopher McKnight Nichols is Professor of History and Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, at The Ohio State University.
Nichols specializes in the history of the United States and its relationship to the rest of the world, particularly in the areas of isolationism, internationalism, and globalization, as well as the role of ideas and ideologies in U.S. foreign relations. He is also an expert on modern U.S. intellectual, political, and cultural history, from the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (1880-1920) through the present. Nichols is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and an award-winning teacher. He is a frequent commentator on the historical dimensions of U.S. foreign policy and politics. Nichols has authored and edited six books, most notably Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age (Harvard UP, 2011, 2015), and most recently Rethinking American Grand Strategy (Oxford UP, 2021) and Ideology in U.S. Foreign Relations: New Histories (Columbia UP, 2022).
