Tact and Intelligence: Essays on Diplomatic History and International Relaitons

Craig (late history/humanities, Stanford U.) started in diplomatic history and expanding his understanding to the political, intellectual, social and literary culture behind the people who made German, and therefore modern European history. These 16 essays mark his growth in analyzing the shifts in social and political contexts that resulted in changes in the European balance of power; the editors include three of Craig's essays on the historian's craft, which explain the lucidity of his work on such topics as the system of alliances in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Europe, the American founding fathers and the balance of power that developed with Europe, German and US approaches toward foreign policy, relations between the world wars, problems of perception in the cases of Roosevelt and Hitler, the role of diplomats during World War II, Churchill's understanding of Germany, and the continuing search for order. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Gordon A. Craig was for more than half a century one of America's foremost historians of Germany and Europe. He was the J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University and (in 1982) the president of the American Historical Association. He was a member of the German Federal Republic's Orden Pour le Merite fur Wissen schaften und Kunste, and (in 1999) winner of the first Benjamin Franklin--Wilhelm von Humboldt Prize of the German-American Academic Council.