Thomas Schwartz

Distinguished Professor of History Vanderbilt University

  • Nashville TN

Historian of U.S. foreign policy, international relations and U.S. presidencies.

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Vanderbilt historian and Henry Kissinger biographer on Kissinger legacy ahead of 100th birthday

Thomas Schwartz, Distinguished Professor of History, is available for commentary surrounding the legacy of Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, ahead of his 100th birthday (May 27, 2023). A historian of U.S. foreign relations, American politics, international relations and Modern European history, Thomas is the author of “Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography.” Thomas can discuss Kissinger’s: Mixed bag legacy, receiving both praise for his guidance throughout the decades and criticism for his more controversial decisions Approach to foreign policy and leadership style, including: ability to recognize failures, penchant for backbiting and reliance on flattery and praise of the president as a source of power Invention of himself as a celebrity diplomat and his domination of TV news Sensitivity to domestic and partisan politics

Thomas Schwartz

Biography

Thomas Alan Schwartz is a historian of the foreign relations of the United States, with related interests in American politics, the history of international relations, Modern European history, and biography. His most recent book is Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography (Hill and Wang, 2020). The book has received considerable notice and acclaim. Harvard’s University’s Charles Maier has written: "Thomas Schwartz's superbly researched political biography reveals the brilliance, self-serving ego, and vulnerability of America's most remarkable diplomat in the twentieth century, even as it provides a history of U.S. engagement in global politics as it moved beyond bipolarity." Earlier in his career, Schwartz was the author of America’s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany (Harvard, 1991), which was translated into German, Die Atlantik Brücke (Ullstein, 1992). This book received the Stuart Bernath Book Prize of the Society of American Foreign Relations, and the Harry S. Truman Book Award, given by the Truman Presidential Library. He is also the author of Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Harvard, 2003), which examined the Johnson Administration’s policy toward Europe and assessed the impact of the war in Vietnam on its other foreign policy objectives. He is the co-editor with Matthias Schulz of The Strained Alliance: U.S.-European Relations from Nixon to Carter, (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Professor Schwartz has held fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the German Historical Society, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Center for the Study of European Integration. He has served as President of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. He served on the United States Department of State’s Historical Advisory Committee as the representative of the Organization of American Historians from 2005-2008.

Areas of Expertise

Henry Kissinger
American Foreign Relations
Modern European History
International Relations
History of U.S. Foreign Policy
Twentieth Century American History
History of the U.S. Presidency
Lyndon Baines Johnson
LBJ

Accomplishments

The Madison Sarratt Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

2013-04-03

Vanderbilt University

Annual Alumni Education Award

2008, Vanderbilt Alumni Association

2008 Book Award

Chi Chapter of the Kappa Alpha Order

Education

Harvard University

Ph.D.

History

1985

Harvard University

A.M.

History

1979

Oxford University

M.A.

History

1978

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Selected Media Appearances

Brittney Griner pleads guilty in Russia, but experts warn next steps may have serious consequences

Fox News  online

2022-07-08

That sentiment was echoed by Tom ​​Schwartz, a distinguished professor of history at Vanderbilt University, who called a prison swap in a high-stakes case like this a "slippery slope."

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Biden Defiant on the End of the Afghanistan War

U.S. News & World Report  online

2021-08-31

"I think this was a disaster through and through, and could have been avoided. There was a political motivation to get out by the anniversary of 9/11," says Tom Schwartz, a Vanderbilt University history professor who has written extensively about the intersection of foreign policy and presidential politics.

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Disunion haunts U.S. on its 245th birthday

Reuters  

2021-07-03

Vanderbilt University historian Thomas Alan Schwartz noted the country's challenges had changed since the tumultuous tenure of former President Donald Trump.

"Our problems are really different now," he said. "I think Joe Biden's America is a calmer, gentler place."

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Selected Event Appearances

The Arab Spring: Revolution in the Middle East

Samuel L. Shannon distinguished Lecture Series  Tennessee State University

2011-04-19

Henry Kissinger, Vietnam, and Iraq: The Problem of Realism in American Foreign Policy

The 2010 Herbert S. Schell Annual Lecture in American History  

2010-10-18

Selected Articles

Kissinger at 90: Still a Force to Be Reckoned With?

E-International Relations

Thomas A. Schwartz

2013

Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State and the most famous living American diplomat, turned 90 on May 27, and his birthday provided the occasion for several writers and analysts to reflect on the significance of Kissinger’s career and the continuing influence of his ideas. Robert Kaplan, in an extensive defense of the elder statesman in the Atlantic, argued without any trace of irony that Kissinger was “the 20th century’s greatest 19th century statesman” and that his “classical realism” remains “emotionally unsatisfying but analytically timeless.”

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Henry Kissinger: Realism, Domestic Politics, and the Struggle Against Exceptionalism in American Foreign Policy

Diplomacy & Statecraft

Thomas A. Schwartz

2011

Henry Kissinger was the single most controversial diplomat of the 20th century. This article explores Kissinger's approach to the philosophy of realism in international affairs, his role in Vietnam policy making, and his most recent engagement in the debate over the Iraq War. It argues that Kissinger's realism, although philosophically consistent and having roots within his own life's experience, was always tempered by his desire to exercise influence within the American political system.

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Legacies of détente: a three-way discussion

Cold War History

Thomas A. Schwartz

2008

Participating in this discussion about détente with two respected friends and scholars, both of whom have authored significant books about the subject of my current research, Henry Kissinger, compels me to confess that I have been strongly influenced by their work, and that this discussion threatens to be repetitious and even dangerously in agreement!

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