Fall 2003
Walter LaFeber, Professor
Maria Underhill Noll Professor of History
Cornell University
Walter LaFeber of Cornell University is one of the nation’s most distinguished scholars in the history of American Foreign Relations. His numerous and highly-regarded publications include nine books, four additional co-authored volumes, three edited collections, and a host of articles, essays and book chapters in both scholarly works and the popular press. Three of his books have won major, prestigious awards: "The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898" (1963, 1998), which received the Albert J. Beveridge Prize of the American Historical Association; "Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America" (1984, 1992) which received the Gustavus Meyers Prize; and "The Clash: U.S.-Japanese Relations Throughout History" (1997), which received both the Bancroft Prize in American History and the Ellis Hawley Prize of the Organization of American Historians. His America, Russia, and the Cold War has been one of the most highly regarded histories of that huge conflict for over 35 years and is now in its 9th revised edition.
Professor LaFeber is also a highly popular and award-winning teacher at Cornell University, where he has been since 1959. He was the first recipient of the university’s John M. Clark teaching award, and from 1968 to 2002 he was the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of American History. In 1994 he became a Stephen Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow, and in 2002 the Andrew Tisch and James Tisch Distinguished University Professor. He has also lectured at numerous universities in the United States and overseas and has made numerous radio and television appearances. He is past president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has also served on numerous scholarly editorial boards and the Advisory Committee to the Historical Division of the Department of State.