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Historians now recognize the political significance the Protestant ecumenical movement of the early twentieth century. American ecumenists contributed to the architecture of international organization and were among the first to promote a global discourse of human rights, and ecumenical plans for world order were designed for the peaceful spread of national self-determination and to combat racial prejudice. Ecumenical missionaries were at the forefront in reconceiving race relations, globally as well as in the United States. But the overriding ecumenical concern was the creep of secularism, which, despite their modernism and liberalism, ecumenists saw as the root of all evil. In 1945, when forced to choose between their vision of world peace as secured through international organization and their desire for racial equality, ecumenists sacrificed the latter so as to protect religious liberty and advance the Protestant interest. Ironically, despite their longstanding criticisms, ecumenists had to accept the dictates of national sovereignty for the sake of religious universalism. The contours of the liberal international system that resulted from this compromise remain to this day. In addition to primary-source research, this article is based on a synthesis of a tsunami of recent secondary literature on liberal Protestant internationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This AHR Roundtable features four short essays on Jill Lepore's widely read synthesis of American history, These Truths: A History of the United States (2018). Lepore's framework insists that the "self-evident" truths of the nation's founding were anything but. The driving force of her narrative is the struggle of those excluded from this magic circle—really, the majority of the country's population—to extend those truths beyond their narrow core of elite white men. The four reviewers—Ned Blackhawk, Matt Garcia, Mary Beth Norton, and Paul Ortiz—appreciate the "shared sense of national destiny" that clearly informs Lepore book. At the same time, they chide her for what they regard as significant omissions. These critical essays invite further consideration of how best to write a fully inclusive (and therefore dramatically reconfigured) national narrative [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II, when Axis theories of racial supremacy became purported antonyms to Allied values, leaders of "non-white" countries gained a new framework for challenging a global order grounded in racialized notions of fitness for self-government. But the story is more complex than a sole focus on the international sphere allows, as those leaders who adopted anti-racist rhetoric to challenge their disadvantaged position in international politics were sometimes architects of racial hierarchy at home. This article examines how anti-racist struggles within Panama and the Canal Zone mapped onto the anti-imperialist project of a racist Panamanian state. Scholars of race and international relations have highlighted the challenges that anti-imperialist struggles posed to racialized criteria for international legitimacy, on the one hand, and the impact of geopolitical conflict on domestic struggles for racial equality, on the other. The view from the Canal Zone reveals the interplay between those two phenomena. Foregrounding Latin America in a history of the global politics of anti-racism precludes escape into binary visions of a world divided between colonizers and colonized, a racist Global North and an anti-racist Global South, or a tidy color line that splits humanity in two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the late Cold War, the United States and Western European countries offshored migration control to less powerful nations by converting them into buffer zones. Buffer zones had long been used to provide nations with military protection; now they were imagined as protecting nations from migrants by obstructing their movement. This practice had human rights implications. Beginning in the 1970s, the idea flourished that the defense of individual human rights was a transnational mandate that extended beyond the protections granted by particular nation-states. Ironically, the transnational practice of extending migration controls beyond individual nation-states that developed in the 1980s opened the door to increased human rights violations. This essay explores these dynamics by focusing on how, during the 1980s, U.S. officials pressured Mexican authorities to enter into a Faustian bargain that limited Mexico's sovereign right to determine its immigration practices. U.S. policymakers insisted that they would turn a blind eye to Mexican migration if Mexican officials suppressed Central American migration into and through Mexico. In turn, Mexico's leaders instituted measures to stop Central Americans from reaching the United States. These measures did not curtail transmigration, but they did lead to widespread violence and human rights abuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review essay is presented that explores how historians have approached the imperial history of the United States. It explores issues related to power, global connections and space and discusses the relationship between the imperial history of the U.S. and the urban history of the U.S. Topics discussed include exceptionalism, nationalism, nation-states and forms of state control.

The article presents discussion and criticism in response to the essay "The Myth of the 'Weak' American State," by William J. Novak, originally published in the June 2008 issue, analyzing the history of U.S. political power. The author focuses on the alleged relationships between civil law, war and state power within political theory generally and in U.S. historiography specifically. Novak's assertions on the urgency and importance of the issue are lauded but his conclusions and suggestions for a new political-legal framework of analysis is rejected.

The article explores the roots of anti-American sentiment in the Americas. The author argues that the U.S. policy elites, scholars and pundits of the Cold War era used the notion of Anti-Americanism to claim that the nationalist and revolutionary sentiments in Latin American countries like Venezuela and Cuba were not based on actual grievances against U.S. power; rather they were a psychological reaction to modernization. With its legitimacy called into question, the U.S. government painted manifestations of anti-Americanism as fear born from ignorance.

The article discusses anti-Americanism in Asia. The authors, acknowledging the diversity of cultures and political beliefs in Asia, describe a pattern of anti-American attitudes that spans over one hundred years. The authors argue that the majority of Asian people are dissatisfied with the perceived inability of the U.S. to act in accordance with its democratic and anti-imperial rhetoric. At the same time, Asians find much to admire about American culture; however this sentiment often is expressed simultaneously as accusations of American arrogance.

Calls for an American history that included the United States' rapid expansion and its place in the larger international and social order. Work of several generation of writers on international relations and their contributions; Inclusions of social, economic and linguistic approaches.

The article presents a list of essays printed in the book "Florida's Working-Class Past: Current Perspectives on Labor, Race, and Gender from Spanish Florida to the New Immigration," edited by Robert Cassanello and Melanie Shell-Weiss.

The article presents a list of essays printed in the book "The Policy Makers: Shaping American Foreign Policy from 1947 to the Present," edited by Anna Kasten Nelson.

The article presents a list of essays printed in the book "The Power of Promises: Rethinking Indian Treaties in the Pacific Northwest," edited by Alexandra Harmon.

The article presents a list of essays printed in the book "Jane Addams and the Practice of Democracy," edited by Marilyn Fischer, Carol Nackenoff, and Wendy Chmielewski.

The article presents a list of essays printed in the book "Natural Protest: Essays on the History of American Environmentalism," edited by Michael Egan and Jeff Crane.