Perspectives on International Relations - International Student Edition: Power, Institutions, and Ideas

About Henry R. Nau

Henry R. Nau has combined an outstanding career in the academic world with two opportunities to serve at the highest levels of the U.S. government. He brings this experience to bear in this textbook integrating theory and practice with unprecedented clarity for understanding historical and contemporary issues in world affairs.             Nau is currently professor of political science and international affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs George Washington University. He taught previously at Williams College and held visiting appointments at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Stanford University and Columbia University. From 1977 to 1981 Nau served on the Board of Editors of the journal International Organization. He has received research grants from among others the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars the National Science Foundation the Council on Foreign Relations the Smith-Richardson Foundation the Century Foundation the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission the Hoover Institution the Rumsfeld Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.        Nau served from 1975 to 1977 as special assistant to the undersecretary for economic affairs Charles Robinson in the U.S. Department of State. In that capacity he worked in the office of the Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to organize a major conference on science technology and foreign policy. For his service he was awarded the State Departments Superior Honor Award.         From 1981 to 1983 Nau served as a senior staff member of the National Security Council responsible for international economic affairs. He was President Reagans White House aide or Sherpa for the annual G7 economic summits in Ottawa (1981) Versailles (1982) and Williamsburg (1983) and for the special summit with developing countries in Cancun (1982). At those summits the United States led a revival of the world economy from the stagflation and resource shortages of the 1970s to thirty years of 3+ percent growth per year promoting the so-called Washington Consensus (originating in the Williamsburg Summit Communique) of lower inflation freer markets and open trade. Nau wrote an account of these early years in The Myth of Americas Decline (see below).        Outside government Nau continued his public service. From 1984 to 1990 he served  on the U.S. Department of States Advisory Committee on International Investment and as the U.S. member of the UN Committee for Development Planning. From 1989 to 2016 he directed the U.S.JapanSouth Korea Legislative Exchange Program semiannual meetings among members of the U.S. Congress the Japanese Diet and the South Korean National Assembly. In 2016 the Japanese government awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun Neck Ribbon with Gold Rays the highest honor for academic leaders in recognition of his work on this Exchange. From 1963 to 1965 Nau also served as a lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg North Carolina. Naus published books include among others Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy under Jefferson Polk Truman and Reagan (Princeton University Press 2013 and paperback with new preface 2015); At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Cornell University Press 2002); Trade and Security: U.S. Policies at Cross-Purposes (American Enterprise Institute 1995); The Myth of Americas Decline: Leading the World Economy into the 1990s (Oxford University Press 1990); and National Politics and International Technology: Peaceful Nuclear Reactor Development in Western Europe (Johns Hopkins University Press 1974). His most recent edited book is Worldviews of Aspiring Powers: Domestic Foreign Policy Debates in China India Iran Japan and Russia coedited with Deepa M. Ollapally (Oxford University Press 2012). Most recent articles and chapters in edited books include Democratic Globalism National Interest November/December 2018; Trumps Conservative Internationalism National Review August 2017; Americas International Nationalism American Interest January/February 2017; The Difference Reagan Made Claremont Review of Books Winter 20162017; How Restraint Leads to War: The Real Danger of the Iran Deal Commentary (July/August 2015); Ideas Have Consequences: The Cold War and Today International Politics 48 (July/September 2011): 46081; No Alternative to Isms International Studies Quarterly 55 no. 2 (June 2011): 48791; The Great Expansion: The Economic Legacy of Ronald Reagan in Reagans Legacy in a Transformed World edited by Jeffrey L. Chidester and Paul Kengor (Harvard University Press 2015); Scholarship and Policy-Making: Who Speaks Truth to Whom? in The Oxford Handbook of International Relations edited by Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (Oxford University Press 2008); and Iraq and Previous Transatlantic Crises: Divided by Threat Not Institutions or Values in The End of the West? Crisis and Change in the Atlantic Order edited by Jeffrey Anderson G. John Ikenberry and Thomas Risse (Cornell University Press 2008).        For Naus personal website see www.henryrnau.com