Hal Brands, Associate Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy and Sanford School of Public Policy

Hal Brands

Please note: Hal has left the "Center for Latin American Caribbean Studies" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

Hal Brands is a historian whose research focuses on U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy, Cold War history, Latin American security and diplomacy, and other strategic and military issues. He previously worked at the Institute for Defense Analyses, and has served as a member of the RAND Corporation Grand Strategy Advisory Board. At Duke, he is an affiliate of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy and serves on the Executive Board of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies.

Brands is the author of What Good is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (2014), Latin America's Cold War (2010), and From Berlin to Baghdad: America's Search for Purpose in the Post-Cold War World (2008).  He is also the co-editor (with Jeremi Suri) of The Power of the Past: History and Statecraft (2015). 

Brands earned a PhD, MA and MPhil. in History from Yale University. He received a BA in History and Political Science from Stanford University.  In 2015-2016, he is on leave from Duke.

Office Location:  Rubenstein 130
Email Address: send me a message
Web Page:  http://fds.duke.edu/db/Sanford/henry.brands

Office Hours:

Mondays, 10 a.m. to noon
Education:

M.PhilYale University2008
BAStanford University2005
Keywords:

History

Representative Publications

  1. Brands, HS, What Good is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (2014), Cornell University Press [good%20is%20grand%20strategy%22&f=false]
  2. Hal Brands, Latin America's Cold War (2010), Harvard University Press (Paperback released in 2012.)
  3. Brands, HS, From Berlin to Baghdad: America's Search for Purpose in the Post-Cold War World (2008), University Press of Kentucky
  4. Brands, H; Palkki, D, Saddam, Israel, and the bomb: Nuclear alarmism justified?, International Security, vol. 36 no. 1 (Summer, 2011), pp. 133-166, ISSN 0162-2889 [doi]
  5. Brands, H; Palkki, D, "Conspiring Bastards": Saddam Hussein's Strategic View of the United States, Diplomatic History, vol. 36 no. 3 (June, 2012), pp. 625-659, ISSN 0145-2096 [doi]  [abs]
  6. Brands, H, Third world politics in an age of global turmoil: The Latin American challenge to U.S. and Western Hegemony, 1965-1975, Diplomatic History, vol. 32 no. 1 (January, 2008), pp. 105-138, ISSN 0145-2096 [pdf], [doi]
  7. Brands, H, Non-proliferation and the dynamics of the middle cold war: The superpowers, the MLF, and the NPT, Cold War History, vol. 7 no. 3 (August, 2007), pp. 389-423, ISSN 1468-2745 [doi]  [abs]
  8. Brands, H, Progress unseen: U.S. arms control policy and the origins of Détente, 1963-1968, Diplomatic History, vol. 30 no. 2 (April, 2006), pp. 253-285, ISSN 0145-2096 [pdf], [doi]
  9. Brands, HS, Dilemmas of Brazilian Grand Strategy (September, 2010), Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College [pdf]
  10. Brands, HS, Crime, Violence, and the Crisis in Guatemala: A Case Study in the Erosion of the State (May, 2010), Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College [pdf]
  11. Brands, HS, Mexico's Narco-Insurgency and U.S. Counter-Drug Policy (May, 2009), Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College [pdf]
  12. Brands, H, Reform, democratization, and counter-insurgency: Evaluating the us experience in cold war-era Latin America, Small Wars and Insurgencies, vol. 22 no. 2 (Summer, 2011), pp. 290-321, ISSN 0959-2318 [doi]  [abs]