Richard H. Immerman
U.S. Foreign Policy, 20th-Century U.S.
The Edward J. Buthusiem Distinguished Faculty Fellow in History and Marvin Wachman director of Temple's Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy, I am a historian of U.S. foreign relations who concentrates on the Cold War. I also formerly served as an Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence and currently chair the Historical Advisory Committee to the Department of State.
These interests and experiences shape both my research and my teaching. My books range from The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention to Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy to The Central Intelligence Agency: Security Under Scrutiny. My most recent book, Empire for Liberty: A History of U.S. Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz, builds on arguments evident in much of my previous scholarship. Currently writing a book on the CIA and, with my colleague Petra Goedde, co-editing the Oxford Handbook on the Cold War, my next project will examine the relationship between national intelligence and national security.
My teaching draws extensively on my research. I teach undergraduate courses at all levels on various dimensions and periods of U.S. foreign relations, including “The American Empire,” “Rise to Globalism,” the Vietnam War, and “Superpower America.” My graduate courses focus primarily on the historiography of U.S. foreign relations, normally alternating between a readings seminar that covers the Revolutionary Era through World War and one that focuses on the Cold War and its aftermath. In spring 2010 I began to offer a course on "Grand Strategy" populated by both graduate and undergraduate students.