Herbert Feis, Wilsonian Internationalism, and America's Technological-Democracy

The Author: Dr. Dennis Yergler is an associate professor of History and Political Science at Teikyo Westmar University. Dr. Yergler is chairperson of the Cultural Sciences Division and serves as director of the Great Plains Peace Institute. He is a Phi Kappa Phi graduate of Iowa State University, receiving a B.S. in mathematics, an M.A. in history and an M.A. in political science. Dr. Yergler receives his Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from the University of Iowa.

"Impressively researched and cogently argued, Dennis Yergler's study of Herbert Feis's career and writings is both fascinating in itself and important for what is says about the ideology informing much of American diplomacy and the history used to justify it, the tensions between technocratic and democratic thought in these undertakings, and the problems inherent in doing policy-related contemporary history. As Yergler shows, Feis's career stands as an instructive commentary on the course of American diplomacy since World War I, a commentary that should be of interest and value not only to diplomatic historians and current policymakers, but to specialists in international relations analysis and public history as well". (Ellis W. Hawley, The University of Iowa)
"The life of Herbert Feis reveals how the American ideology of global leadership arose and gained predominance, as well as the practical dilemmas it quickly posed for policymakers. Yergler carefully assesses Feis's intellectual evolution as he grappled with aspirations and challenges that continue to face American leaders". (William M. Reisinger, The University of Iowa)
"Starting his career as an economist, Herbert Feis became an important bureaucrat at the State Department before turning to the writing about the international crisis of the 1930's and 1940's. Dennis Yergler's book is not so much a biography of Feis as it is the first critical study of Feis as a chronicler of contemporary international affairs, including the Second World War and the beginnings of the Cold War - before the huge panoply of documentation became accessible to scholars". (Lawrence E. Gelfand, The University of Iowa)