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Hal Brands, Associate Professor  

Office Location: Rubenstein 130
Email Address: henry.brands@duke.edu

Areas of Expertise

  • History
  • International, U.S. Foreign Policy
  • National Security and Defense, Diplomacy

Education:
M.Phil, Yale University, 2008
BA, Stanford University, 2005

Office Hours:
Tuesday, 8-9AM and 3:30-4:30PM

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Brands, HS. What Good is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush. Cornell University Press, 2014. [good%20is%20grand%20strategy%22&f=false]
  2. Hal Brands. Latin America's Cold War. Harvard University Press, 2010. (Paperback released in 2012)
  3. Brands, HS. From Berlin to Baghdad: America's Search for Purpose in the Post-Cold War World. University Press of Kentucky, 2008.
  4. Brands, H; Palkki, D. "Saddam, Israel, and the bomb: Nuclear alarmism justified?." International Security 36.1 (Summer, 2011): 133-166. [doi]
  5. Brands, H; Palkki, D. ""Conspiring Bastards": Saddam Hussein's Strategic View of the United States." Diplomatic History 36.3 (June, 2012): 625-659. [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 32.1 (January, 2008): 105-138. [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 7.3 (August, 2007): 389-423. [doi]  [abs]
  8. Brands, H. "Progress unseen: U.S. arms control policy and the origins of Détente, 1963-1968." Diplomatic History 30.2 (April, 2006): 253-285. [pdf], [doi]
  9. Brands, HS. Dilemmas of Brazilian Grand Strategy. Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College, September, 2010. [pdf]
  10. Brands, HS. Crime, Violence, and the Crisis in Guatemala: A Case Study in the Erosion of the State. Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College, May, 2010. [pdf]
  11. Brands, HS. Mexico's Narco-Insurgency and U.S. Counter-Drug Policy. Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College, May, 2009. [pdf]
  12. Brands, H. "Reform, democratization, and counter-insurgency: Evaluating the us experience in cold war-era Latin America." Small Wars and Insurgencies 22.2 (Summer, 2011): 290-321. [doi]  [abs]

Highlight:
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.

Bio/Profile
Hal Brands joined the faculty at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy in July 2010. He 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 outside of Washington, D.C., 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 From Berlin to Baghdad: America's Search for Purpose in the Post-Cold War World (University Press of Kentucky, 2008). His second book,Latin America's Cold War (Harvard University Press, September 2010), was adapted from his dissertation, which won the John Addison Porter Prize for Best Dissertation in the Humanities at Yale University and the Mary and Arthur Wright Prize for Best Dissertation in Non-U.S. or European History at Yale. His most recent book is What Good is Grand Strategy? (Cornell University Press, 2014).

Brands earned a PhD, MA and MPhil. in History from Yale University. He received a BA in History and Political Science from Stanford University.

Hal Brands