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Francis Gavin, "Thinking Historically: A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy" (Yale UP, 2025)

New Books Network

Thu Dec 04 2025

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Patrick
Guest: Francis Gavin, author of "Thinking Historically: A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy" (Yale UP, 2025)
Date: December 4, 2025

Overview

This episode dives into Francis Gavin's new book, "Thinking Historically: A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy," which argues that the discipline of history offers indispensable tools for understanding and navigating today's complex world. Gavin and host Patrick explore why the tradition of writing about statecraft has declined, the difference between historical sensibility and historical thinking, and how historians can (and should) contribute practically to policymaking and strategic decisions. The conversation is rich with anecdotes, case studies (from Thucydides to Ben Bernanke), and sharp, sometimes provocative reflections on the current state and future of history as a discipline.

Main Discussion Points

1. Motivation and Audience for the Book

Gavin’s motivation to write was “very personal,” rooted in his passion for history and concern about current global uncertainty ([03:35]).
He describes the audience as policymakers and his historian peers, “to be more self conscious and aware both of the opportunities that they have in front of them, their responsibilities, and also perhaps some of the unfortunate choices and pathways the discipline of history has made” ([05:25]).
The book aims to make history a “problem solving tool,” not just a civic or cultural ornament.

2. Why Statecraft and Strategy Became Unfashionable in History

After the Cold War, historians shifted toward cultural, identity, and economic subjects, sidelining grand strategic themes ([08:28]).
Gavin blames both cultural/political movements (e.g., Vietnam-era disillusionment) and academic trends (e.g., the desire to see history as a crime scene rather than a realm for empathetic reconstruction) ([10:02]).
Quote:
“There was a sense that if you studied these issues, you somehow had sympathy for them, which is obviously absurd, but that was a view that came about.” ([11:27])
“You see this in declining enrollments...the state of history as a discipline...is an unmitigated disaster. While at the same time, the need for serious historical study...is greater than ever” ([12:54]).

3. What It Means to “Think Historically”

Many laypeople believe they already “think historically,” but Gavin argues professional historical thinking is uniquely rigorous and difficult ([13:36]).
The difference between memory, antiquarianism, and true history is underscored.
Quote:
“Thinking historically is more difficult than neurosurgery and aircraft design. But...everyone thinks they do it particularly well. They actually don’t.” ([15:40])
Gavin lauds academic historians’ method and research as “nothing short of a miracle” ([14:39]), while warning against "historical mistakes people make that can sometimes honestly be worse than having no history at all" ([15:12]).

4. History at the Border of Humanities and Social Sciences

History’s identity crisis: its methods and aims are distinct from the “muscular epistemologies” of economics and IR theory ([17:28]).
Quote:
“Generalizations across space and time are something that historians will do, but far more carefully...We’re always complicating things, talking about complexity, contingency, chance and circumstance.” ([18:23])
Historians, Gavin insists, are best equipped to understand “fuzzy” problems, such as the relative value nations place on loss and tragedy, which aren’t quantifiable ([20:02]).

5. Application: Historical Sensibility & Historical Thinking

Gavin uses his own experiences (e.g., teaching after 9/11) to show how U.S. policy often treats major shocks as exceptional, ignoring historical precedent ([27:53]).
He distinguishes:
- Historical Sensibility: A cultivated openness, curiosity, empathy, and epistemological modesty developed via “traveling to the past,” but not always made actionable ([29:28], [32:10]).
- Thinking Historically: Translating that sensibility into usable decision-making tools under uncertainty ([33:42]).
Quote:
“You can have a historical sensibility and not think historically...but you can’t think historically without a historical sensibility.” ([34:20])

6. The Limits and Value of Historical Insight in Policymaking

Historical thinking does not guarantee “the right” answer, but improves the quality of questions, prepares for surprises, and facilitates course correction ([28:23], [33:42]).
Gavin highlights the need for humility—acknowledging that outcomes and judgments shift with time.
Memorable Analogy: “It’s like what Churchill said about democracy. Thinking historically is the worst method, except all the others.” ([36:36])
Give decision-makers better conceptual tools (e.g., recognizing that 9/11 was not the world’s “day zero”).

7. Historical Judgment, Uncertainty, and Changing Optics

Cites Henry Kissinger’s concept of “51/49 decisions”—choices made under uncertainty, where even wise judgments sometimes end in failure ([44:43]).
Our view of past decision-makers (e.g., FDR, Andrew Jackson) inevitably changes with time and context ([46:25]).
Quote:
“If we have grandchildren, they will look at us as fools and we have no control over it.” ([50:48])

8. Case Studies: When History Helped

Ben Bernanke and the 2008 Crisis: As Fed Chair, Bernanke’s training as an economic historian pushed him to avoid mistakes of the 1930s, e.g., “flood the system with liquidity,” coordinate internationally, and innovate—actions that arguably prevented another Great Depression ([40:43], [41:16]).
The Nobel Prize in Economics is increasingly recognizing the value of historical approaches ([43:22]).

9. Gavin’s “Historical Checklist” for Decision-Makers

Inspired by Atul Gawande’s “Checklist Manifesto,” Gavin proposes a list of historical questions (e.g., “How did we get here? Was this inevitable? Is this unprecedented?”) to prompt reflection during decision crises ([55:52]).
Unlike binary or technical checklists, these are open-ended, designed to widen debate and clarify options ([58:36]).

10. Why Historians Fail to Influence Policy—and How to Fix It

Gavin sees the failure primarily on the “supply” side: most historians don’t offer policy-relevant frameworks or outreach; policymakers are “grateful for anything that can help them,” but don’t know how to access it ([61:20], [63:01]).
Urges historians to create bridges with government, the private sector, medicine, and NGOs—fields that would benefit from professional historical thinking ([63:43]).
Quote:
“My plea is that history...should be saved from the historians or from history departments.” ([67:26])

11. The Case for Radical Disciplinary Innovation

Argues that history as a discipline must innovate, perhaps even forging new interdisciplinary “departments” focused on statecraft—citing the example of MIT’s engineering departments which reorganize based on emerging problems, not old boundaries ([74:08], [76:09]).
Expresses disappointment with history departments’ reluctance, but optimism about new movements and centers that prioritize practical and strategic thinking ([74:08]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Misconceptions About History:
“Thinking historically is more difficult than neurosurgery and aircraft design. But...everyone thinks they do it particularly well. They actually don’t.” ([15:40])
On History’s Identity Crisis:
“History could be in the social sciences or you could take it in the humanities...what that reflected to me was history has an identity crisis.” ([18:38])
On the Need for Humility in Judging the Past:
“If we have grandchildren, they will look at us as fools and we have no control over it.” ([50:48])
On Decision-Making Under Uncertainty:
“By the time a decision has to be made and it gets to the office of, say, a national security advisor or president, if it had been an easier decision or an obvious decision, somebody else would have made it.” ([44:43])
On Historians’ Responsibility:
“My plea is that history...should be saved from the historians or from history departments.” ([67:26])
Host Patrick’s Reflection:
“What struck me is that historical thinking is more of a meditation on self-awareness and possibilities than a formula for easy answers.” ([54:00])
On Innovation:
“Applying insights from one discipline to another is really innovation...why not attach our undertaking to what it is they do? Because...it will help preserve historical thinking, the discipline, provide opportunities for all sorts of historians...” ([67:46])

Key Timestamps

[03:35]—Gavin’s motivation and personal background
[07:06]–[12:54]—Why statecraft and strategy became marginalized in the historical profession
[13:36]–[17:28]—What distinguishes professional historical thinking from everyday memory or storytelling
[18:38]–[21:13]—History’s identity crisis: social science vs. humanities
[23:54]–[35:41]—Historical sensibility vs. thinking historically; pedagogical anecdotes
[40:11]–[43:22]—Ben Bernanke, economic history, and the 2008 financial crisis
[44:43]–[53:37]—Kissinger’s “51/49” choices, changing historical optics, FDR and long-term judgments
[55:52]–[60:20]—Gavin’s proposed checklist for policy decision-makers
[61:20]–[69:02]—Why historians don’t influence policy and practical steps forward
[74:08]–[77:56]—The case for radical innovation within the field

Final Thoughts

Francis Gavin’s “Thinking Historically” is both an urgent call for historians to reclaim a space in the realms of statecraft and public affairs, and a toolkit for decision-makers to make wiser choices by applying nuanced, professionally informed historical thinking. The episode is as much a meditation on the purpose of history as it is a practical discussion, marked by humility, wit, and a challenge to academic insularity.

Recommended for:

Policy professionals, educators, historians, and anyone interested in how history can (and should) shape the decisions that affect our future.

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Transcript

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Patrick (1:33)

My guest today is the historian Francis Gavin, who's the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished professor and Director of the Henry Kissinger center for Global affairs at Johns Hopkins University. SAIS that's the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. professor Gavin has written extensively about statecraft, strategy, U.S. and global histories. A few of his recent books include the Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Rethinking International Relations and American Grand Strategy in a New Era that was published by Rutledge in 2024 Nuclear weapons and American Grand Strategy published by the Brookings institutions press in 2020 and chaos in the Liberal World Order, the Trump Presidency in International politics in the 21st century. That's a coded collection published by Columbia University Press in 2018. That's just three out of many of his publications. Today we're talking about his most recent book titled Thinking A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy, published by Yale University Press this year in 2025. Frank, thanks for coming on Practical History.

Francis Gavin (10:04)

Sort of sense of what mattered. And so we naturally studied those. I would hope and expect that now that we recognize that statecraft, strategy, global politics always mattered, but it's particularly highlighted now, we might see a return to this. Although I have some skepticism, the history discipline will. I'll say that there's perhaps two less benign explanations. The first is, and you get a sense of this if you read Peter Novik's this Noble Dream, which is a history of the American historical profession. It was published three and a half decades ago, so it's a bit out of date, but one of the most compelling aspects of it is how the histor historical profession really sort of imploded as a result of the Vietnam conflict and all of the very bitter, sharp debates that emerged from it. Some of it understandable, some less so. But one of the sort of victims of that was the studying of state corrupt and strategy. There was a sense that if you studied these issues, you somehow had sympathy for them, which is obviously absurd, but that was a view that came about. I also think all historians wrestle with the question of historical judgment. I make the case in the book that we can't escape judgment. We all have judgment. But the first history shouldn't be seen as reporting on a crime scene. Right? Because our responsibility is to be empathetic, not sympathetic, but to our historical characters, no matter where and when they acted. And there is an instinct, both in the larger culture and individually, to look to the past, not just to find explanations, but to find justifications and to point out right and wrong. And there's a place for that. But it's. It's difficult. And I think in a lot of ways the historical profession gave into a larger cultural desire to see the past as a crime scene, which I don't think has been especially helpful. So those all have led to a marginalization of the history of strategy and statecraft and a larger marginalization of the history of profession. You see this in declining enrollments. You talk to university leaders and their frustration at what history departments do. And so, you know, the state of history as a discipline as opposed to, you know, as. As an organizational discipline, as sort of represented by, say, the American Historical Association. You know, it's an Unmitigated disaster. Right. It has been. While at the same time the need for serious historical study, historical reflection, is greater than ever. And I would actually suggest the demand for it.

Francis Gavin (13:36)

Of course. That's a great question. I would step back and say one of the real challenges towards making the case for thinking historically is that everyone already thinks they do it. And because our brains are neurophysics, biophysics are structured to look at reality around us and craft historical narratives. And so we all think we do it. And I'm sure you've had this experience. We've all had this experience. We go home for the holidays, we go to a cocktail party. Someone says, what is it you do? And you say, you're a historian, and somebody wants to give you their opinion about World War II or about slavery or about, you know, the founding in a way that no neurosurgeon goes to a cocktail party and says, I've got opinions on neurosurgery. Or no aircraft designer goes in and says, you know what? I really think this is how airplanes should be designed. And it's a dilemma because I think thinking historically is more difficult than neurosurgery and aircraft design. But the challenges. And I have. So I have this debate, and it's a serious debate. I have a very good friend, a historian, a very accomplished historian, who says, no, it's good that history is accessible to others. You want to pull them in. But my view is that, and this is why I spend some time in the book, talking about what it is a professional historian actually does and what. What they're. How they think about things. For all of my ragging on the historical profession as it's organized as an entity, what historians do is nothing short of a miracle. And it's regardless of its own culture. On social issues, whether it's the 8th century, the 18th century, whether it's Latin America or Africa, I find the sort of the process and the epistemology and the learning and the research. Just extraordinary. And so what I try to do in the book is identify certain things that the culture presents as history which are easily accessible. And people think, oh, well, I've gone to a museum site or I've collected various historical elements, or I've seen a documentary or listened to a podcast. Therefore, I know a lot about history. And I spend some time in the book talking about how there's a variety of historical mistakes people make that can sometimes honestly be worse than having no history at all. And there's this great quote from Ernie May and Dick Neustadt's Thinking in Time, which is a classic book written in 1986 that sort of tries to do some similar things to what I was doing, although there are important differences. But they have this great line where they say teaching history to policymakers is like teaching sex education to teenagers. You can't tell them not to do it, but you'd like to do them to do it safely and maybe derive some enjoyment out of it. And it's the same with thinking historically. Everybody does it. Everyone thinks they do it particularly well. They actually don't. And so spending some time reflecting upon how actually impressive historians go about their work, and they develop both a historical sensibility and translate it into thinking historically, I thought was important.

Francis Gavin (17:28)

Right, yes. Yeah, no, it's a very good point. And what I suggest in the book is there are the social sciences that I am most conversant with are economics and international relations theory. And I refer to them as more muscular epistemologies. They have certain goals, such as replicability or generalizability or the cumulative nature of knowledge or generalizability or parsimony. A variety of qualities that they hold up as important. And I understand them, they are very admirable qualities. But historians are skeptical of all of those. Right. They don't believe in rec. Ability. You know, history provides. It's the n plus one problem. Everything is unique. Right. Generalizations across space and time are something that historians will do, but far more carefully. Parsimony seeking the simplest explanation. We're always complicating things, talking about complexity, contingency, chance and circumstance. And in terms of accumulation of knowledge, like we keep going Back to the same question, say, the origins of the First World War. And like, re even if there's no new evidence, reevaluating, re sort of assessing. And I think those distinct qualities are somewhat unique. And I mentioned in the book, when I was an undergraduate University of Chicago, I was not a history major as a political science major, but Chicago was divided up into four divisions or colleges, Physical sciences, biological sciences, social sciences and humanities. And there was only one major that could be in either, and that was history. History could be in the social sciences or you could take it in the humanities. And the only difference was in the social sciences you had to take one language in statistics, and you humanities, you took two languages. And what that reflected to me was history has an identity crisis. Now, I think that identity crisis is a reflection of its honesty and some of its great qualities, but it doesn't know whether it's fully a social science or a humanities. And given that we live in an age that is obsessed with data and science, yet most of the problems we face and most of the challenges we're looking at are completely immune to those sorts of approaches.

Francis Gavin (23:54)

Sure, sure. Although I can talk a little bit first about the 911 thing because, because I, I can't remember if I mentioned this in the book or not, but it's, it's what I was thinking because I mentioned the 1988, 89 story. The other story that stayed with me was when I was recruited to the University of Texas in the year 2000. And it's kind of a funny story because the LBJ school, which is a school public affairs that I was recruited to, is, is governed by something called the LBJ foundation. And under it is the LBJ Presidential Library, which has all the presidential documents. And then the school and they have a foundation and the dean and the head of the school report to the foundation twice a year. They ask for money. And so in the late 90s, the director of the LBJ Library became a very dear friend. Harry Middleton convinced Lady Bird Johnson to release the presidential tapes, the recordings that Johnson had made far earlier than had been in the deed. And they released and it caused a media sensation. So everybody was obsessed with them. And the LBJ foundation, when they met with the head of the library, they're hearing about all this great stuff with the tapes and they asked the dean, what are they doing? And the dean of the school at the time, they taught, you know, like road management and local education reform and municipal policy, made this decision to advertise for a presidential historian. Well, I was not a presidential historian, but as you know, when you're trying to get a job, you'll say whatever it is. And I got the job. I arrived at LBJ in the fall of 2000 and I said to myself, what can I teach? Most of my colleagues were economists, public management folks, people who did local governance, state and local governance. And so they had a course called Policy Development. And I decided to teach the course. And the way I taught it was I did two cases over the semester, one of which I thought was a success in American grand strategy and foreign policy, American policy on the German question in the post war period. And one which I thought was a failure, American policy in Southeast Asia. And as a result.

Francis Gavin (29:28)

Yeah, no, and you're absolutely right about that. I don't mean to suggest. In fact, one of the things I wrestle with, you'll recall in 2006 and 2007, there was a big debate in the United States about counterinsurgency. And James Baker and Lee Hamilton have been involved in a report at the Wilson center, which did involve some historians, basically said, this is a disaster. The United States needs to get out. Right. And it was based on some historical awareness. And the George W. Bush administration, the president himself decided to do the opposite, to double down. There was a Sunni awakening, there was the surge, and there's some in that world who will argue, well, that was the right choice. Right. And so what? I don't think it was actually. But the. My point is that thinking historically doesn't necessarily tell you the right thing to do, because when you face radical uncertainty about the future, it's totally unclear often what to do. It's, we look, you know, we look through the pass, through rear view mirror, but we're looking in the forward, through a fog where we can't see. It's only to ask better questions and to make better connections so that we hopefully arrive at better decisions and if we don't, to be more aware when we are, but in terms of the historical sensibility and thinking historically. So when I first started thinking about this project, I thought to myself, one of the great things about being a historian and all the historians I know is they have, they develop, given their traveling to the past, to different worlds, to different cultures, to different times, to different perspectives. They develop qualities and characteristics, a sort of openness, a curiosity, an empathy, a sort of an eye for seeing the unexpected that I believe generate really, really powerful and important qualities. A certain epistemological modesty, a certain sense of an awareness of what the shared human experience is, while being recognizing profound differences between how individuals, societies, cultures and countries have organized and pursued their lives. And that awareness, that sense struck me, if everyone had it, you would have far more tolerance, you would have far more empathy, you would have far more recognition of perspective and difference, and that.

Francis Gavin (46:25)

Thing that had been done that was that was necessary or a key part of the Cold War ending out on terms that were beneficial to the United States. Right. And so I have another book out now. It's called Wonder and Worry, Contemporary History in an Age of Uncertainty. And it's a series of essays that I've written. And the penultimate essay is one that I wrote after the reelection of Donald Trump and, you know, put my cards on the table. I was depressed, you know, and so I went back to reread some of my favorite books, some fiction, some nonfiction. And I read Arthur Schlesinger's Age of Jackson. And I read it because Jackson was the president that had been most compared to Trump. When we think about Schlesinger we think of someone who is, you know, you're kind of Cold War liberal. You know, he was very progressive on social issues, but saw the United States as needing to be committed in the world and the Age of Jackson's a remarkable book because it's mostly about how American culture, economics and society flourished during Jackson's period. It's seen as a good period. And in the introduction he talks about, it's written in May 1944, in the middle of, towards the end of the Second World War, weeks before Normandy, where he says, basically, the world needs more Andrew Jackson and that FDR's hero was Andrew Jackson. Now, in our current times, we don't see Andrew Jackson as a hero. He was a racist. He treated, you know, he was, you know, he did terrible things to the Second bank of the United States that created a depression for his successor, Martin Van Buren. You know, he had this spoil system kitchen cabinet seen as uncouth. We don't see him as somebody necessarily to held high esteem, but he was Roosevelt's favorite president. And for Roosevelt and Schlesinger, Jackson was a hero because he brought democracy to America against these sort of snobbish elites, the founding Fathers, who we all now love. Right. And the reason I make that point is that historical judgments will shift over time. Right. You know, you go visit Harpers Ferry in West Virginia and you reflect on John Brown. We see John Brown as a hero, right. John Brown was understood by Almost everyone in 1859 during Harper Ferry raid as a terrorist. Like even Frederick Douglass kept his distance from him. Even the abolitionists said, this guy's crazy. Right? Because historical judgment changes. And I think about this often as I wrestle with Trump, because when I was reading the Age of Jackson and I thought about fdr, I thought, let's say FDR is one of our greatest presidents. But let's say I didn't like FDR at the time. What would I say? Well, one of the things I would say is a fact few people don't know. Do you know why we have inauguration day on January 20th, not March 4th anymore? Do you know the answer to that? It's because when Hoover lost the election, the country was in the midst of this terrible, much worsening economic crisis. And Hoover begged FDR to cooperate with him, to have a bank holiday to announce that they would do the London Economic Conference, and FDR refused. And the reason he refused was he recognized that politically it was to his advantage for the economy to be in absolutely the worst shape possible when he took over. Right and so he did the opposite of what Obama did in 2008. And so for politically expedient reasons, you know, millions of people lost their jobs and hundreds of banks went out of business that might not have otherwise if FDR had listened to Hoover. Right. And then the first thing that one of the first things FDR does is he scuttles the London Economic Conference, announces an American first economic policy. Now again, I still think FDR was a great president, but this is a guy who tried to pack the Supreme Court. He ran for not just three terms, but four terms the last term when he knew he was dying. Right. So all of this is to say we thinking historically helps remove the arrogance that we think we know everything. Right. If we have grandchildren, they will look at us as fools and we have.

Francis Gavin (56:54)

Yeah, it's a great question. And I would say that I offered this to start a discussion rather than have final answers because I feel like what I offered in terms of your correct question about institutional responses incorporating this is still incomplete. But the idea of the checklist came from Atul Gawande, who's this great emergency room doctor, who's also a beautiful writer, wrote a book called the Checklist and it was based on his research and understanding of. In the late 1930s, as the United States was preparing for war and the Army Air Force started developing longer range bomber aircraft of increasing complexity and sophistication. As they were testing these out, the crash rate was very, very high. And as they started to investigate why the crash rate was high, they realized there was a lot of pilot error. But the pilot error came from. They recognized that if you were to get the pilot and co pilot and the crew to ask a series of questions, you know, are the flaps on? Are the engines set? And. And that you ended up dramatically reducing pilot error and crashes and fatalities. And Gawunde applied this to emergency rooms. He realized that simple things like washing your. Did you wash your hands? Did you sterilize this instrument? Did you take the temperature? Did you. And because in the heat of pressured moments, we often forget to do the most basic things and that can lead to danger. And so my thought was were there questions, simple questions that could be asked in the heat of the moment when decision makers were facing and they're in the situation room and they're facing a crisis somewhere, or they're facing a decision, decision and the briefing of principal president or prime minister, a leader that they could ask that would generate more clarity, highlight what the options were, maybe eliminate mistakes. Now there's differences, right? The, the checklist in aircraft and medicine, they're more often binary. My questions are a bit more open ended and they're interpreters, right. Which is reflective of policy, because policy is often we. Policy is part of a Political process. Politics often involves values and often involves preferences. And so those are hard to sort of categorize in a binary yes or no. But I thought if you had these set of questions and I offered them to open the debate, like people can offer different questions and the questions could be fine tuned to the particular issue you're facing. But if you just had a list where you said, all right, let's calm, let's be calm, we're under this pressure, how do we get here? What else is going on? What are our unspoken assumptions? You know, just go through the list. My belief was that would generate a richer conversation debate and would improve the option set, improve the understanding of the problem in front of people, and generate better decisions.

Francis Gavin (63:43)

Completely muffed this opportunity. I mean, as we talked about earlier, they've abandoned supporting or encouraging the serious study of statecraft or strategy, which to most people is just bizarre when you think about the consequences in the world we live in and how much, whether it's from medicine to culture to art to social relations to demographics, how much we're shaped by international politics, decisions of war and peace, diplomacy, and then even the avoidance of war in great power of war in the thermonuclear age, that any citizen or policymaker would not want to have some understanding of how thermonuclear weapons shape world politics. It's just, I think for a normal person, bizarre. But like this is just something that the history duplicates discipline for its own particular pathologies, has decided not only not to support but to actively discourage. And so I would like to find the sensibility which history departments do train and which do encourage, but then to be both applied to other subjects of concern. And again, I make it very clear in the book it's not either or I think the understanding of culture, society, history from below, looking at things that we, you know, his. One of the great things about history is, you know, I talk about Historical sensibility is like a magnet and it pulls the unseen from under the surface. Thinking historically as like a chemical dye that then is applied ruthlessly says what matters but that historical magnet. I've learned so much from the wide array of subjects and periods and geographies and perspectives that historians pursue. Which is why it's puzzling to me they would not apply those same skills to understanding issues of statecraft and strategy, which are inarguably of enormous consequence, even if you don't care about decisions. But in understanding your own subject, there's not a subject you can't understand. Slavery, for example, without understanding war, it's just impossible. Right? You can't understand the development of modern medicine. You can't understand the development of race relations in the United States without understanding the consequences of war and the Cold War. Right. So, you know, history, as a discipline, as an organization, has just decided not to do this. I don't think there's any reason why, given their shameful handling of the discipline and the fact that students aren't taking these classes, that, you know, faculty are shrinking. I would love to see this epistemology placed in areas where it could be supported. And we know, if my argument's correct, then I think not just policymakers or people in business or law think about medicine. Right? If you're a doctor, if you go to the doctor and you have, say, you know, a stomach problem, basically what doctors do is construct a history of how you got to where you are. And we know as historians that how medicine does that changes. In the 1920s, when most of the modern medical curriculum was established, you would focus clearly on the anatomy and focus on the stomach, right. And see what happened. Then maybe 30 or 40 years after that, as the importance of genetics came about, you would start asking about genetic history. Then maybe a few decades later, as medicine became more integrative, you would say, well, how does the digestive system interlate with the respiratory system, with the neurological system? And now we understand the incredible importance of environmental factors on health, stress, income, you know, geography. And so how a doctor tells a story of why you're sick and what to do about it is history. They're not aware of it. We should help them do it better and by being aware of it. So I believe doctors should think historically both about their own undertaking, understand that all practices have a history, and they should understand that. But as they are crafting a causal narrative to their patients, there are better and worse ways of doing it. So my plea is that history, you know, there, you know, history should be saved from the historians or from history departments. And I do think there's no shortage of demand for doctors, lawyers, business people, technologists, and policymakers. And if my argument is correct, correct that they would all do their jobs better learning history, why not attach our undertaking to what it is they do? Because if, if anything, it will help preserve historical thinking, the discipline, provide opportunities for all sorts of historians, which, even if you don't believe my story, is. Is instrumentally good thing. So that that's the wild dream I have.

Francis Gavin (74:46)

And sometimes my historian front saying, aren't you think you're being too tough on the field of discipline? I think I'm not being tough enough. And I do think there are these movements about you look at one of my best friends is Will Inboden. He's now the new provost at the University of Texas. And he had run this Hamilton center in Florida, creating this new Civitas center at University of Texas, which people see through a political lens. And they're not all perfect, but the idea is to recapture some of this humanistic thinking to, you know, and not just in history, but political philosophy and not just history of statecraft and strategy, but just sort of all sorts of different types of history. And I do think there are places where people are frustrated and they recognize you see this when I talk to university leaders, they it is you're be hard for us to find a history president in the United States who says I just love with my history department's doing and it's meeting the needs that I think my alumni and my students and society at large. You know, if you ask them, are you happy with your, you know, biomedical group? Are you happy with, you know, so. And I so I do think it's an opportunity, how it's seized, who takes advantage of it. I would love for the discipline of history to prove me wrong, would love nothing more. But my hope is that this movement, even if it means creating a new discipline, I mean I'll say a final thing about this. I was at MIT in the political science department and I had the good fortune of hanging out with the nuclear engineering department a lot because I was asked to help them with the search. And nuclear engineers are amazing. They're obviously brilliant. They all want to blow stuff up and put it back together again. And one of the things I realized when hanging out with them was that there's no such thing as a nuclear engineering discipline. There are problems in the world to be solved. So depending on the problem, they would bring in a material science person, a computational digital person, a physicist, you know, a molecular biology person, a biochem person. All that mattered was what was the problem in the world they were trying to solve. And as the problems in the world changed and shifted, they shifted their epistemology and they shifted who they brought in. And so at MIT in the last 50 years, there have been a proliferation of new engineering departments because the nature of the problems have changed. You know, 60 years ago, we didn't have biochemistry. Paul Doty said, you can't understand biology without chemistry, and you can't understand chemistry without biology. So he created biochemistry. That is what I think we need for the history of statecraft and strategy. We need a new way of organizing how we teach research and engage the public that it's its own, sort of. Because the set of problems that we're facing are distinct. And if our fellow historians don't want to be involved in that, that's their choice. But there is a large demand for it, and I think there's a lot of talent to do it, and we should just create new ways of offering this knowledge.