History seminar. He is cool editor of the global and International History theories for Cambridge University press. Volume empires on war, 1911 to 1923, which refrains the history of the great war as a global war vampires and the will sony moment. Selfdetermination in the International Origins of and to colonial nationalism. He will close or symposium with a lecture that explores how president wilsons ideas and convictions were formed, how they shape the peace settlement and how that continues to impact us today. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming doctor erez manela. Thank you for that kind introduction. I want to thank laura and matt, and everybody on the staff at the World War One Museum and memorial. Including, everyone who kept us organized and well fed through these two days. This is the second time, as you mentioned. That i have worked with this group. I have been amazed by your intellectual engagement and you organizational history. I would like to take a moment to put our hands together and think the people who brought us here today. [applause] december of 1918, u. S. President Woodrow Wilson arrived in britain in route to the peace conference gathering in paris. We have heard quite a bit of it already. During his time in london, before he arrived in paris, wilson had a private interview with the deputy chief sensor of Great Britain. A man by the name of frank whirling ten. In response to a question from wording tint about Close Relationships between Great Britain and the United States, wilson told him the following. And i quote, you must not speak of us who come over here as cousins, still less as brothers. We are neither. Neither must you think of us as anglosaxon, because that term can no longer be rightfully applied to the people of the United States. He then concluded, and i quote again. There are only two things which can establish a medium closer relations between your country in mind. They are a community of ideals and interests. This might seem like a surprising outlook to take for a man like wilson. All the more so sentence brand common perceptions in that era. Let me give you one example of an opposite perspective of this relationship. Some years earlier, the Scottish American steel baron Andrew Carney guilty published an essay which he advocated at lane for the reunification of britain and north america. That essay, he wondered why a mere disagreement over taxation, one that was already a century old, should result in a permanent separation. And that essay, colonel offered six arguments from his reunion of britain and america. The first arguments, and the most important in his view, was about race. I quote hear from him. First, in race, and there is a great deal in race. America remains to be forced purely british. He added that there is a mixture of german, but that too is german. The americans main british remaining less different than the scottish, walls, and irishman differ from each other. It is to be noted that only in the region of political ideas theyre similarity for no rupture has ever taken place in language, literature, religion, or law. If we compare these two viewpoints, carney on one hand and wilson on the other. The difference is striking. American and brits were won the race separated by divergence separated ideals. There were different races united if they were to be united only by a common ideals and interests. The divergence between carnegie you and wilsons. Was more striking. They had deep roots in British Isles and in scotland. His birth colonel grandfather james wilson was a scot irish immigrants from america, from northern ireland. His maternal grandfather, thomas woodrow, after whom he was named, was born in scotland and moved to Northern England to carlile. He headed to a congregation where his mother was born before immigrating to america. What do we make of wilsons statement in 1918 . In order to understand it, i want to argue. In order to understand his thinking on the postwar, we need to take into account the descended of scottish immigrants, not even as many historic and have done, as a son of a minister, and a devout presbyterian himself. Every single u. S. President in history has profess to be believing cushion. In this sense, wilson is not unique. We can stipulate that some have done more credibly than others. Nevertheless, they all have done it. Instead, we must cast our minds to the aspect which wilson was truly unique among u. S. President s. That is to recall that he was the only president in the history of United States before or after, that earned a pitch the degree. Perhaps that is why he is a favorite of many academic. He made a distinguished career in academia in the field of history and politics. What i want to argue to you today is that it is wilson as the academic that we need to think about when we reconstruct the intellectual capital that he brought to his career as a domestic political leader, and then on the world stage. Lets begin with biography. The wilson we know was the product of the u. S. South, virginian raised in georgia and south carolina, before and during the civil war. He went on to attend the college of new jersey, later renamed princeton university. He studied law the university of virginia before attempting to practice in the south metropolis of atlanta. He quit law, bored out of his woods, and decided to pursue advanced i. D. S in history in politics at the newly established John Hopkins University in baltimore, maryland. It had been founded a few years before with the goal of importing the Germany University model to combine highlevel research with teaching. Wilson was a member of one of the very first cohort of americans to graduate in the United States with a ph. D. , which he received in 1886 at the age of 30. By 1890 he landed back at princeton and launch a successful career as an academic and public intellectual. He published steady stream of books and essays on american politics in history, and became a popular teacher and lecturer. He was appointed president of princeton, and a decade of his presidency of princeton is seen as a time with university was transformed from something of a finishing school for southern gentleman, to a Serious Research university. I recount these biographical details because i think they are important to the task have taken on. That task is to make the argument that in order to better understand wilsons thinking about the war and peace that should follow it. To understand the order he was trying to put together in pairs. We must understand the origins of his thinking on the source of the border and disorder, and social and political life and in general. One way to think about it was that wilsons project was, the ultimate title of my presentation, to avert anarchy. I use anarchy into senses of the word. The first dance, if the anarchy of war. In this case, world war i. The second sense, related but separate, is the anarchy of social disorder. Specifically, the one that wilson would have associated with anarchists. In his time. A designation in which he would have lumped socialists. These types of anarchy is were tightly connected in the modern world and the remedy for them was tightly connected. To see how they were justified in his mind, we need to take stock of the intellectual capital he brought to his position as president of the United States. Capital that he accumulated over three decades of his adult life prior to his andrew into politics a 1910. Henry kissinger is supposed to have said that decisionmakers and political leaders dont have time in office to actually learn anything you, and so all of their decisions and outlooks in office drawn the intellectual capital they had accumulated prior to taking that position. It was during these decades from the start of his graduate studies, close to three decades, to his appointment and Academic Administration thats from 18 eighties to 1900, the most tumultuous and transformative times in u. S. History. During that time, will snow cumulated intellectual capital that he later drawn, verse as governor of new jersey and then as president of the United States. Wilson thinking about politics government, hand the sources of social disorder, developed in the context of the domestic political life of the United States into decades leprosy to the war. Only after the war broke out, was the scheme he developed applied to the international arena. So it is the internet actual framework in which wilson interpreted a transformation that hes around him . These unfolding from 1880 on. Wilson developed his political thaw during an era we like to call the gilded age in the United States. A time of profound historical transformation in u. S. History. Since i know all of you recall this from high school or perhaps later, i will go over this quite quickly. What are the transformation . First, this helps to claim comments about americans no longer being called anglosaxon. This is an era of largescale immigration into the United States, bringing new diversity and tension. From 1980 to 1910, 20 Million People arrived in the u. S. , mostly from south and eastern europe. In 1910 census, almost 50 of the population were counted as foreign born, higher than today. Number two, sweeping technological changes during that era in the fields of communication. I like to tell my students who think that internet social media have revolutionized their life that revolution pales to the revolution of the telegraph. It happened is that information could only travel at the speed of an individual human being. Whether by walking, horse, running, or on a ship. Its hard to travel after that at the speed of light. That is revolution. It goes further in many ways than what we have seen with the internet. A revolution communication, a revolution transportation with the steam engine and the jet engine. I was raised in the age of horse and carriage and by the time he was president , he had an automobile. Now long after, he started building country club plaza, which im told was the first small built in the United States to accommodate customers coming by automobile. The industrial revolution, based on this the imagines and so forth was the third industrial revolution. Wilsons a rapid industrialization that by 1900 made the u. S. Economy count for 25 of all Global Industrial production. We see massive social dislocation, not just because of immigration, but internal migration. The runaway growth of cities. We see recurring financial panics in the 18 seventies and 18 nineties, and wilson was living through this time as an adult. Among all of this, and as a result of all of this, we see a steep rise in inequality with extended streams on the social fiber. To summarize how wilson himself the total of all these changes, in terms of politics. His view, the result of all the changes was the rapid growth of unaccountable power concentrated in the hands of the few. This forehand was a moral problem, but it was also and more so a problem with practical politics. The accountable concentration of wealth and power as a historical phenomenon had to generate an inevitable counter reaction. Namely, social unrest and revolution. If you are a marxist, you wouldve called it a dialectic. This is no theoretical reflection. Those decades which he lived and cumulated intellectual capital, were rife with labor unrest, social conflict and the rise of ideology movements that wilson saw the ideology that led to the assassination of president mckinley in 1901. This assassination was literally the historical event that brought progress him is him to power. It brought mckinneys Vice President roosevelt to the presidency. The way i like to show this is to present these two threats to order. Anybody recognize the individual on the left . The assassin of president mckinley. Representing an wilsons view, the reaction to the phenomenon that morgan represents. Wilson, as he saw himself as a progressive leader, his job was to get between those two and hold the center, to make sure that through a reform the problem of unaccountable power can be ameliorated so it does not lead to anarchy and revolution. Illusion for wilson, which he articulated for a published intellectual, and implemented as a leader. Was to push for a stronger role for government in the economy, particularly for the executive branch, to break up the trust and regulate production, labor, and finance. With the goal of restoring political balance and order. These reforms included eight hour workday, limits on child labor, and the founding of the Federal Reserve. I was driving by the Federal Reserve bank of kansas city, which im sure you are familiar with. Even before the outbreak of the great war, wilson could see this dialect between concentration, unaccountable power and russia to play a not only domestically, but abroad. In fact, the very first Foreign Policy crisis that wilson faced when he came into office as president. How to respond to the ongoing revolution in mexico. That revolution had broken out in 1910 with the removal of one strongman. In 1913 he was on the cusp of inaugurating another military strongman into power. Wilson responded to the, rather to the surprise of the british, by trying to support the liberals in mexico by instituting an arms embargo against the militarists, which quickly led to conflict that saw u. S. Marines landing in a mexican port. U. S. Actions did actually have the liberals in mexico, and ended up with the removal of the strongman in power at the time, they also turned the liberals against the u. S. No faction mexico wanted to be associated with the yankee military interaction on mexican soil. The tensions in the will sony and operating procedure abroad is obvious. In china, which had its own republican revolution in 1911, wilson saw the same dynamic at play. With the late dynasty representing and accountable power, and the revolution representing the inevitable reaction to it. As a mexico, a wilsons policy towards china vacillated between that inc. Events take their course and tips the scale and the direction he favored the mixed results. Once the great war broke out, wilson spied a similar dialect that work there. That is to say the connection between concentrated power and disordered and revolution on the other hand. On the world stage it was the kaiser and russian czar, for wilson represented the most visible symptoms of unaccountable power. He called it a pop chrissy. It could incite revolution. One reason wilson kept u. S. Out of war for the first nearly three years, with the believe that the czar who was on the side of the aisle as was on the wrong side of history. This is when the march of 1917 revolution russia, replaces our with provisional government that seem to fit in the reformist mold. Within mcinnis the new government within a week. The first major nation to do so. This change in the russian government, and this is after the removal of the czar, but before the bolsheviks takeover later that year. This change played in wilsons idea to take them into war the coming months. With those are gone, the allies became less tainted in his eyes at the stain of autocracy. What about the british and french . At that time, surely those were prime example of unaccountable power exercise on the world stage. We will get to that later. The bolsheviks takeover in november 1917, both change the calculus and prove the wilson he was right. Wilson knew little of london at that time, he knew enough to have those symphony out all. Lennon knew the revolution would come as a revolution that happened in russia of concentrated and accountable power. Wilson and lennon agreed on some things. They both shared the sense that the established order, both domestic and international, had to be transformed to make power more accountable. Beyond that, they parted ways. Wilson was looking for a third way between reaction on the one hand, and revolution on the other. Relented, the choice was stark. Either you have reaction defined by capitalism and imperialism, or you have a revolution there was no third way. This is a slide i used to represent wilsons conundrum abroad. The kaiser representing unaccountable power, lennon representing the revolutionary responds to unaccountable power. Wilson coming into the war and then coming to paris to try to hold the fort between both of these threats. The main components of this wilsonian third way . Put simply, they were the league of nations and the principle of selfdetermination. Lets take each in order and examine them in the context of this framework that i have set up for you. First, the league. The Crucial Point here is that in wilsons original conception of the league, it is not simply to be a body that would coordinate among individual, fully sovereign nationstates. Rather, it was to be an instrument in which states would pool some aspects of their respective sovereignties. In some ways, not unlike the European Union before brexit. In any case, a supranational political structure in which nations or states would pool some of their sovereignty. It was to be an organization that would make the power of sovereign states more accountable to what wilson liked to call world opinion, hence having helping to ameliorate the problem of unaccountable power. There is evidence of a draft wilson drew up and took with him to europe. Two of the public statements he made when come in back from europe show that this was the leak that he wanted. That, by the way, was precisely a problem with the leak that he wanted. But doesnt that idea of pooling sovereignties stand in conflict with the oregon with the notion of selfdetermination . It seems to suggest at least the sanctity of National Sovereignty. How could National Sovereignty both the sacred and pooled in these institutions . I would actually say quite the contrary. Such pooling of sovereignties, he thought, could only work if done in a way that was accountable to the peoples involved. For wilson, selfdetermination was never primarily about creating ethnically homogenous policies. By the way, wilson borrowed the term from bolshevik rhetoric very consciously he did, to try and defang the bolshevik threats by partially coopting it. The term he used prior was consent of the governed. That was his term and goes back several centuries in angloamerican political thought. Even when he started using the term selfdetermination, i have never been able to find a single instance in the documents where wilson specifically defines selfdetermination as national. National selfdetermination is a phrase, as far as i can tell, that he never used. Trotsky, on the other hand, always talk about selfdetermination. Wilson knew very well that he was working from the american model and the new very well and knew very well that america was not an ethnically homogenous nation and to the extent it was having it would have selfdetermination it was to be exercised by democratic processes and not by the process of ethnic homogeneity. The form that national selfdetermination took in europe and parts of asia, that was not a wilsonian idea. Those were ideas that were indigenous to europe and to other regions. As i was saying, its not about creating ethnically homogenous policies but rather about creating accountable governments, ameliorating what he saw as the root causes of war and revolution. This, of course, was the theory, but wilson was first and foremost not a theorist, a practical politician, which means he made many compromises driven by his own inconsistencies and prejudices and also by the designs and interests of others who had power over the course of events. We also heard quite a bit about those. There are many examples we can think of of wilsonian compromises, but perhaps most illustrative is the league of nations mandate, attendant met meant to reform imperial rule. The british and french had no intention of letting go of their imperial possessions in the name of accountable government, quite the opposite. It was also a compromise with wilsons own prejudice, reflecting innocence the people of asia, africa, or the middle east were somehow less advanced in their Political Development than people of european descent and therefore had to be tutored for selfgovernment and the mandates were to provide that preparation. Even with this compromised state, the league of nations mandate challenged the absolute sovereignty of colonial powers over their colonies by making them acoustically accountable. It did not topple colonialism immediately. That would have been a revolution, and wilson was not a revolutionary. But it did challenge the legitimacy of the colonial enterprise, saying that the main pertinence of colonial rule purpose of colonial rule was to prepare colonial peoples for independence, that the main purpose was to make itself unnecessary. It also included colonial populations in the system to make government more accountable to them. This accountability wilson viewed as key to world peace after the war. We focus on what wilson wanted and why we should also emphasize that his wartime rhetoric resonated with wartime audiences and that rhetoric was given meetings that went well beyond his own plans and intentions. Wilson may have wanted reform is able work against revolution, but the words and opportunities he appeared to create had revolutionary rather than reformist implications. By wars and, the president became worldfamous as a symbol of the coming world order unto which various groups projected their fondest hopes and dreams. His words helped inspire and mobilize anticolonial movements in regions from africa to east asia. Wilsons failure to make good on his perceived promises led to anticolonial activists including ho chi minh, mao zedong, and others to look to bolshevism for support. Its no accident that the chinese commonest party was founded in 1921. After 1919, selfdetermination became an essential principle of international widget missy where it persisted. Franklin roosevelt, who had served the Wilson Administration and spent a few days in paris as part of the u. S. Administration. Franklin roosevelt recommitted to that principle during world war ii when he compelled the reluctant Winston Churchill to be included specifically inside the atlantic charter. Churchill had to go back and explain why that didnt apply to india and other british possessions. Fdr also took it further, particularly as it applies to territories outside of europe. This is research i am working on right now so i could talk about it at length. Indeed, support for selfdeterminations and their incorporation into institutions of International Governments where the two Main Elements of the International Order that the United States did go on established at the end of world war ii. Can i say world war ii here at the world war i museum . Of course, what fdr did not sufficiently account for his attention at the center of the u. S. Advocacy, and the tension is this. What if a nation determines to take a path that is not aligned with u. S. Interests . In other words, what do you choose when the principle of selfdetermination clashes with other principles that you hold dear . Already by the late 1940s, washington chose what it saw as the containment of cognizant what it saw as support for selfdetermination, most prominently when it chose to back the french in indochina, and when the french lost the war from the United States took it over itself. In vietnam is just one example. Throughout the postworld war ii decades, the principles of support for selfdetermination remain prominent even while policy often flouted in practice in the name of containment or other pressing concerns and interests. So where does that leave us . First, i hope i have convinced you that in order to try to understand what wilson tried to do, we first must understand the intellectual capital he built up over decades on thinking and writing. And, that his analysis of the conditions of modernity in which americans found them selves at the time he was elected was centered on the desire to escape the dialectic he saw playing out between the concentration of unaccountable power on one hand and the dangers of revolution and the other. And that once he came to the presidency, he applied this framework to world problems. First in mexico and china, then in europe and the world at large. If i have convinced you of all of this, i have to say the legacy of this is also, catered. Is complicated. In some sense, wilson succeeded. Several independent states arose from the wreckage of empires pursuing the principles of selfdetermination. In another, he clearly failed. He could not convince the senate to ratify the treaty. The u. S. Remained outside the league and was but a shadow of what he imagined it might be. Selfdetermination proved even more complicated than he specked it in its attainment and its use. In a limited but important sense, wilson is wilsonism became the blueprint for the construction of eight u. S. Led International Order which has undergirded International Relations and defined International Relations for the better part of a century. Whether it is still there to define our future, im not sure and we have to wait and see. Thinking about this history highlights the tensions and contradictions that would have been in a project. It also reminds us that the liberal International Order is now facing unprecedented challenges both at home and abroad and is doing so under circumstances that are eerily reminiscent of those of a century ago. If we look at our present it is easy to see ourselves as undergoing a new gilded age with accelerated globalization rapid economic and technological change generating change and crisis. A deep ideology challenging Political Institutions both in the u. S. And abroad and the concentration of unaccountable political power. We live in a world not unlike the world wilson saw around him. A world in which we are not cousins, still as brothers, and yet continue to search for a way to build a community of ideals and interests. Thank you. [applause] gentlemen, we would open the floor to your questions. The first question will come from the gentleman on the left. 00 42 07 that was fascinating. If i could pick up on wilsonians failures. Im thinking it did not have so much to do with his intellectual capital but more with his character, that he was a very stubborn, selfrighteous man and that this was a major factor why he was not able to persuade others of the value of a and intellectual capital. That is a great question. It is not an either or proposition, it is both and. Hes intellectual capital, the intentions that outlined and his character had a lot to do with that as well. I will add that wilson actually as governor of new jersey and as president , for most of his two terms was an effective politician. He was able to convince many people of a few things. His rhetoric during the war and innumerable people around the world that he was the man to make the change that they wanted to see in their own affairs. His failure at the end of his political career is undoubted. It has to do with his character. It also has to do with the deterioration of his health. In early october of 1919, he had a major stroke would put him out of commission. Its likely had minor shots in the months prior to that. That did not inverteds character but made him more stubborn and flexible. Its impossible to know for sure what would have happened if he did not have those strokes. It is not difficult to imagine he couldve reached a compromise. He was a harvard man, wilson was a princeton man. That might have been doomed to fail to begin with. Putting that aside. It did garner a majority in the senate, it did not garner the two thirds majority required for ratification. It is not impossible to think that a healthier wilson would have been able to convince the senate to go through with it. We have a different assessment of his legacy. Im intrigued by how you are framing will sony is a mom and intellectual origins and the idea of anarchy. His extensive writing about the reconstruction era. Can you talk about that and make the connection between how he is writing about conceptualizing an arcism in applying his ideas on self determination, particularly as a relates to colonize people. Thats a great question. Im not qualified for a cycle analysis, so i can say for sure whether wilsons experience in the u. S. Civil war was one of the elements at the basis of his fear of anarchy. I would not be surprised if it was. A boy who goes up in antebellum virginia, and suddenly the world falls apart. That could very well be part of the explanation for is fear of anarchy, anarchism, and his attachment to this idea of reform, and gradual nonviolent change in tragedy of containment. The idea to convene revolution, disorder. To do it as a historian, he knew that history always involve change. You can do it by keeping things static. The only solution he could think of his reform and nonviolent change. When we see that he realizes the echoes that his rhetoric has in the colonial world, his unique response is mixed. Has no love for european imperialism, and on the other hand, has a greater fear of anarchy and disorder. Lets dig the sample of the egyptian uprising in 1919 against british ruling egypt. The United States puts out the support of statements, and then the british go to corner house and say, its your president s fault that the egyptians are rising up, they think hes bringing self determination. More reports come from egypt that some of the protesters are being violent, knocking down telegraph lines. The infrastructure of imperialism as a site, and he never cares all about that much about the selfdetermination of non white people whose instinct is to, he needs more time and builds he has an approach of gradual move toward self government. His words have helped to cause violence and disorder, he backtracks in the statement, the state Department Says we are sympathetic to egyptian desires from more self government, but opposed to violence and disorder. That is not the right way to go about things. The mandate system campsites those attentions you were alluding to. There is an end goal of independence for these colonial people, but i have to go to all these stages and the reformist are nonviolent. We have time for two more questions, i will be closed out. There was some talk about u. S. Mandates in the middle east. How serious to those discussions get and is there much documentation of wilsons general reaction to those proposals were . The best of my recollection, the biggest part of the conversation was over media. As we heard yesterday, the Armenian Genocide was very well publicized in the United States during the war. Handily morgan thou was a u. S. Minister we reported back on this during the war, he was in associative wilson. My sense of it is that wilson was sympathetic towards this idea, but it was not a high priority for him. Once he got the u. S. Public was not supportive of it, it wouldve required military presence in that ongoing conflict in asia minor. He sensed was the United States could not do it. The other element is the famous king crane commission, in which the United States sense to parts of the middle east, today they are lebanon, syria, and meet with hundreds of delegations there, to get their views about what should be done. Their view is that we want an american mandate and independence, if we cant have those, maybe vehicle live with a british mandate, not a french one. That was the order of preference, but independence was the best thing. What happened with the king of crane commission. By the time they write the great report they find online, the United States has left the middle east to the british and french in the report is buried by the state department. Never published, and never acted upon. Im just thinking you can almost load a picture in the middle of hoover, he is politically opposite in many ways from wilson, but theyre working together during the war. Hes making the same argument about why era. No return to monarchy, avoiding social revolution. My question is, did wilson just convince them of this while theyre working together, or is there are a broader sense that this is the u. S. Role in the world. That question reminds me to emphasize that i am making a claim that wilson was a political thinker and those ideas were original to him. That was not the case at all. He was reflecting a fairly broad sensibility among american progressive. What makes wilson standout as a great deal is that she had a great deal more power than others. As you can see, he is at the center of everything, so they go to wilson, not the british and the french and so forth. Its his power that distinguishes him, rather than his ideas. He is the one best in place to put these ideas into implementation. What hoover does is kind of the difference between humanitarian aid and political change. Hoover is worried about revolution and he says we will feed these people, and stem the tide of evolution temporarily. But wilson is thinking long term political requirements to stem the revolutionary tied. It does not surprise me that there was an overlap in thinking there are certainly some shared aspects in their thinking we join me in thanking doctor erez manela watch tonight beginning at eight eastern and enjoy American History every this weekend and every weekend night on cspan. Contenders. I come here i come here tonight knowing that im the underdog in these final weeks. But if you know where to look, there are signs of hope. Even in the most unexpected place. Even in this room full of