Abstract

Since the 1970s, early American diplomacy has typically been dismissed as a professional backwater. As a field of study, foreign policy, dominated as it has been by elite, white males, supposedly fails the modern demand for a scholarship of inclusion and diversity. New research grapples with trendier topics, such as “whether to emphasize the ways in which white men oppressed women, Indians, or enslaved African Americans, or instead, on these groups’ often-remarkable efforts to endure and overcome their oppression.” Among diplomatic historians, the twentieth century has attracted far more attention than have the years between the American Revolution and the War of 1812. ¹